• Travelsignposts Home
  • Country Guides
  • City Guides
  • River Cruises
  • Europe Photos
  • About Us

Italy Travel

  • Home
  • Trip Planner
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Map
  • Weather
  • Site Map
  • Destinations
  • Shopping
  • Sightseeing
  • Food
  • Getting around
  • Useful facts
  • News & Events
You are here: Home / Food / How to make Orecchiette pasta – The Favourite Ears of Puglia

How to make Orecchiette pasta – The Favourite Ears of Puglia

By Helen Page Leave a Comment

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Orecchiette Pasta is the Favourite of the Puglia Region:

Orecchiette pasta

A tray of various flavoured orecchiette

Orecchiette is a typical pasta of the Puglia region. This ear-shaped pasta is on all restaurant menus and so it is no surprise that our cooking class in Ostuni includes the making of orecchiette pasta.

Cooking Lessons in a Masseria

This morning we are taken on a 6 km walk through the beautiful countryside of Ostuni. Our end destination is a traditional ‘masseria’, a typical Apullian converted farmhouse, where we are to do take some cooking lessons. I was concerned that my lack of cooking skills might cause me some embarrassment, but the ladies in our group admit that they too are not expert cooks. The men didn’t look like they’ve spent time in the kitchen, so making these intricate little ears seem like a challenge for all.

Making Orecchiette

We watch our host make the dough and then she demonstrates how the orecchiette is made. She doesn’t speak English so we are lucky to have Giuseppe do the commentary.

She makes it look so simple, cutting the dough into bits and then rolling them into shape with her thumb and index finger. We are all given small amounts of dough each to make our own batch of orecchiette.

Orecchiette pasta

Preparing the orecchiette dough

Rolling the dough into finger-size thickness and then cutting it into nail-size portions is the easy part. Next we roll the dough with the thumb and then transfer it onto the index finger to form the ear shape. We didn’t do too well in getting the ear shape.

Orecchiete pasta

My completed tray of orecchiette

For lunch we have orecchiette with a tomato sauce. I’m glad that the pasta that we are served for lunch are those prepared by our host and not the ones that we made. In restaurants the popular accompanying sauce seems to be with turnip greens (cime di rapa) which are in season. In all the restaurant menus, it is incorrectly described as orecchiette with turnip.

A one-step process in Bari

In Bari, we learn that Orecchiette is made a little differently. This time, it is done in a one-step process with a knife. I watch this signora make the pasta, but she is doing it so quickly that it’s hard to see how she manages to turn the ear in the one move. She manages to shape the orecchiette even without looking at it. All around Bari old town you can see women making these orecchiette.

Click here to get a free PDF of this post

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: apulia pasta, ear-shaped pasta, orecchiete pasta, orecchiette

avatar

About Helen Page

Helen Page is a prolific blogger and ardent traveller; she runs Travelsignposts with her professional writer and photographer husband Tony.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You can also find us on

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Latest Additions

  • Giant Street Art adds spice to Rome’s Creative Scene
  • How to make Orecchiette pasta – The Favourite Ears of Puglia
  • Dinner in the Lair of a Giant Octopus!
  • Grandstand View of Il Campo, Siena
  • A Unique Tableware Find in Venice

Plan and Book Your Trip


eNews and Updates

feedburner Sign up now to get emailed news as well as other site updates!

Get the Guerrilla Travel Photography ebook here now!
City Guides
Country Guides
River Cruises

Who is behind Travelsignposts?

Helen and Tony Page at Singapore Changi Airport

We're Helen and Tony Page, and we love travelling - lucky as we've been doing it for the last few decades!

Tony has long been a professional photographer and writer, but Helen now writes most of the posts and takes a lot of photos herself!

Travelsignposts is our main travel planning site, but we've just launched Travelsignposts China and Tony also runs the Travelsignposts Photo and Guerrilla Travel Photography web sites, as well as publishing the Take Better Digital Photos and Guerrilla Travel Photography eBooks.

Read more about Helen and Tony or contact them.

Other Countries

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Czech Republic
  • Devon & Cornwall
  • England
  • Estonia
  • Europe (General)
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Ireland
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Portugal
  • Scotland
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine

Resources

  • Take Better Digital Photos eBook Take Better Digital Photos eBook
  • Take Better Digital Photos Free eCourse
  • Travel Signposts Photo – our main travel photography site
  • Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook

Copyright © 2022 ·Lifestyle Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress · Log in

Get a free PDF of this post!
Just enter your email address below and we'll send it to you immediately.

Please enter your Email Address