Experiments in pasta: Fregola

Fregola. Fregola? Have you heard of it?

I hadn't seen it before today. I just happened to be watching a programme about Italian cooking and saw them making it. It's a pasta made from semolina. Kinda like cous cous but a bit bigger and weirder. I've never had much success making actual pasta but this turned out really well.

You make it by laying out semolina on a tray and then sprinkling it with water. You swirl it with your finger tips and tiny pasta rubble appears. I think you are supposed to dry it out after that in the Italian sun, which we are supremely lacking ... so I baked it in the oven for a bit.

You cook it in boiling water like any dried pasta for 8-10 minutes. It's very filling. I made it with tomato sauce but it's meant to be good in soup and stuff too. Apparently they save the smaller bits for soup, but I currently do not have a sieve so a colander had to do. You get the picture.

Frankly, I still can't believe it worked ...

Ah, I found the program, it was Lidia's Italy. She explains it way better here: http://www.lidiasitaly.com/recipes/detail/1029

I am rather interested in Italian recipes (and wines) at the moment as we have booked to go to Italy on our honeymoon. Whoop! Very exciting :)