Good morning everybody, I'm Peppe Daddio
chef and teacher in "Dolce e Salato" Academy
in Maddaloni. Today I'll show
you a typical recipe from our
working land, my Caserta town.
Cavatelli with water and cooked flour
a mussels sauce, bacon, cauliflower
and a treat: taralli crumbs
from Naples, typically from Mergellina. The
ingredients for the recipe are: water,
lard, salt, durum wheat flour, pastry flour
and a whole egg.
About the sauce, let's start from the base.
Extra virgin olive oil, here
we have parsley stalks
garlic, bacon from Caserta
black pork, dried tomatoes
fresh mussels,
and cauliflower. At last,
taralli from Mergellina.
Let's proceed with the cavatelli:
let's add in a pot
some water,
the lard,
lard or leaf lard
salt
and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Let's bring the water to a boil
and in the meantime,
let's combine the two flours:
durum wheat flour and pastry flour.
A dough with cooked flour
means obtaining very elastic
cavatelli, to be able to create a cavity in
the pasta. As the name suggests, cavatello.
Let's pour the water on the two flours
and mix.
As the flour absorbs the water,
we're letting it rub in as
it's done for shortcrust pastry
and then we add the egg.
In the meantime, the temperature
of the mixture lowered, as the water
quantity is smallest compared to the flour
and there's no risk for the egg to
accidentally cook. Let's add the egg,
that works as kneading liquid.
Let's leave the spoon to start
working our recipe with the hands!
Let's remove the dough from our bowl
and place it on the counter.
Let's now knead with both hands
our dough for cavatelli.
The dough stringed, it gained consistency.
We're letting it stand for about
15-20 minutes
maybe covered with a damp cloth or film.
Let's now proceed with
the creation of cavatelli.
Let's cut the dough into slices
and let's
create small loaves.
If the dough spreads without flaking, it
means that the mass is well hydrated. Let's
cut our cavatelli as
small candies,
then we're creating the cavity
following the characterisation of the three
fingers. How are cavatelli made? Here is
the cut dough candy. Using
three fingers, we're pressing and
from a side, we're pulling; from the other,
we're pushing back our cavatello. Let's start
making the sauce for our cavatelli,
giving priority to the longest
cooking times. In this case, being the
cauliflower a quite leathery vegetable
we're starting to work
the roses by removing
the inedible part, that we usually
throw away: we're using it to make
a cauliflower cream. To obtain
the roses, we're removing
the central core completely
so to cut them out without waste.
We're cutting them in four
pieces to make the cooking uniform.
Here we're take the roses we made
and place them on a small tray.
We're directly cooking.
Let's add the cauliflower roses and
let them boil in this water.
We're using the same
water to cook cavatelli.
Let's now prepare the cauliflower cream.
Let's add a drizzle of
extra virgin olive oil in a
small pot.
The garlic clove without core,
so we removed the bulb.
Let it brown lightly
we're flavoring the extra virgin oil
Let's add the central part
of the cauliflower, meaning
the core, that we cut out before, and
a part of cauliflower in roses.
A bit of table salt
and the cooking water of the cabbage.
Let it cook for
15-20 minutes, then we're
blending the cauliflower cream.
Let's proceed with the opening of mussels.
A drizzle of evo oil over the base of the skillet
then we're adding
the peeled garlic, this time
parsley stalks, that possess
an antioxidant power and release their
scent, and a chunk of chili pepper.
Let's add our mussels and
let's pour
some cauliflower cooking water to prevent
the bulb of the seafood from drying.
The roses are cooked,
we can test it with the fingers.
They're soft and
we're straining them on a small tray.
Let's finish our recipe
by combining the flavors.
Evo oil, a mashed garlic clove
- we're mincing it coarsely -
some cauliflower leaves we
kept aside before. Let's also
julienne-cut our bacon
and add it cold, and
the dried tomatoes.
Everything is in the skillet, the flavors
combined, let's now brown. Meanwhile
the ingredients inside
the skillet are browining
we're adding the cauliflower roses
we bleached before.
In this way, they're mixing the flavor
with the remaining ingredients,
that we're sautéeing in a pan.
We're adding the mussels
in a very practical way.
Let's take the mussels water and sift it
with a very fine sieve, adding it
to our preparation.
Let's stir it all well
and flavor the recipe.
While the water boils,
let's add our cavatelli.
The cooking is over, let's
blend the cream and add it in the pan.
Let's shine it
with
some extra virgin olive oil.
Here's the cream.
The texture is fine, so we can
add it to our sauce.
Let's pour the cauliflower cream
in our sauce
and let it absorb.
Meanwhile, the cavatelli
that emerge on the surface -
we're straining them with a skimmer
and adding them to the sauce.
We just have to sauté
our pasta, the cavatelli
and season them with the sauce.
Let's proceed with the dishing up.
Let's add
julienne-cut parsley
Pecorino cheese sticks
and at last, following the recipe,
taralli crumbs.
A drizzle of raw oil
and the dish is complete... Voilà!
