Lindsay Marie Morris

There are hundreds of types of pasta—perhaps even about 360, says Jacqui DeBono, who runs The Pasta Project blog from her home base outside of Verona. Originally from Britain, the former journalist and English teacher became fascinated with pasta after moving to Italy about 22 years ago with her Sicilian husband. She's chronicled her exploration of more than 100 uniquely shaped noodles, documenting their stories, recipes, and preferred sauces. One type in particular has especially captured Jacqui's fancy: Sicily's casarecce, shaped like rolled-up scrolls. The pasta's name comes from the Italian word casereccio, which translates to homemade, which Jacqui says is the best way to enjoy it.

Jacqui took the time to share more about her project and this special pasta with me.

 

 

What inspired you to start The Pasta Project?

I moved to Italy 22 years ago, although I visited many times, and prior to living in Italy, I lived in Malta. Pasta is really popular everywhere, but pasta in Italy is not the same as pasta everywhere else. And I was just really impressed with how many different types of pasta—more than 360, they say—and all the different ways the Italians prepare them. It's really so much more than what people know outside of Italy or what people are familiar with. So I decided I just wanted to share that with other people. 

I am nowhere near the 360 types of pasta. I have maybe close to a hundred that I've made, bought, or cooked. I still have a long way to go.

I try to divide the recipes between Italy's 20 different regions. The pasta you find in Sicily, you won't find here in Verona. Everybody more or less sticks to their type of pasta, except for the things that have become sort of popular throughout the country, like spaghetti.

Spaghetti was invented in Sicily, but it's eaten throughout Italy, and it's obviously eaten in many other countries. So, some types of pasta have gained popularity elsewhere. And there are types of pasta that never really got out of the region. You'll only find them there. 

 

Why is casarecce one of your favorite pasta types?

Apart from the fact that it's Sicilian, I like it because it's one of the prettiest traditional flour and water pastas. And it's very versatile because of the shape. It looks like a little scroll, and sauce gets stuck inside. So, it looks nice, is easy to make, and is very versatile. You can eat it with ragù, and you can eat it with pesto. 

 

 

Jacqui DeBono uses a pasta press or ferro (pictured here). 

 

What is the difference between homemade and commercially produced casarecce?

For homemade, you can make it two ways. You can use the traditional ferro, which is a very fine iron rod that many traditional pastas, particularly in the South, were made with. Or you can make it with a pasta press.

Commercial pasta is made in two ways: with a bronze die, which you'll find the more traditional artisan pasta makers use, or Teflon dies, which big pasta makers, like Barilla, use. They don't have the same texture as the bronze-die pasta because they tend to be smoother. 

When you make it yourself, it's not as uniform. Obviously, with commercial pasta, every piece is perfect. The word casarecce comes from casereccio, which means homemade. It's not perfect, but I think homemade pasta tastes better than commercially produced pasta. It has a nicer texture. You can taste the wheat. 

 

What are some tips for making casarecce?

The only real tip is to use the right kind of flour. And what I discovered quite recently is that although we tend to call it semolina flour, it's actually semola rimacinata, which is re-milled semolina flour. So, if you get semolina flour in the States, it's not going to be exactly the same as the similar semola rimacinata because that's finer. And that's the flour that all Italian dried pasta is made with. In the States, it would be called durum flour, not semolina flour, because semolina flour is coarser than durum flour. So it's important you have the right flour because otherwise, you won't get the right texture and consistency.
 

What's your favorite way to eat casarecce?

The one I really like is with caponata. Caponata with pasta is not a traditional combo. Most Sicilians eat caponata as a side dish or as a starter with some bread. But more recently, it's become quite popular to put it with pasta. And I really like that; it's all the flavors on one plate.

 

It's also really good with pestos. You can cook it with ragù, but I think it's so much nicer with vegetarian or vegetable sauces. 

 

 

 

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Set in Milwaukee's Bay View, a historic Italian enclave, Semolina MKE proudly carries on old-world pasta traditions while catering to an appetite for regional flavors and staples. 

Owner Petra Orlowski's maternal grandparents were Sicilians from Chiusa Sclafani and Vicari. She credits her grandmother with teaching her how to cook pasta, among other things. 

Today, Petra gives that knowledge back to her community, teaching pasta-making classes and showcasing high-quality Italian specialty items like olive oils, vinegar, honeys, salts, wine, and cheeses.

 

"I'm all about sharing," she says. "I want people to make food. I don't want to be a gatekeeper holding these recipes for myself. Everybody should be cooking."

Petra took time to chat with me about her journey to starting Semolina MKE, popular products and classes, and her hopes for her customers, many of whom she considers friends. 

 

 

Tell us about your background and what inspired Semolina MKE.

I worked as a dental technician for years, and then I got married, got pregnant with twins, and stayed home with them for four and a half years until they went to kindergarten. Then, I wanted to get out of the house again, so I started working at Sanford Restaurant as a host. I worked there for about 15 years and did everything but the kitchen. I did two years as a pastry chef for a different restaurant. Then, I was managing another restaurant prior to COVID, and that shut down. 

So, when I was sitting at home alone with no work to do, I started doing a really deep dive into pasta-making. I had always made pasta, but this was me making more intricate shapes and just kind of trying to keep myself busy. Then, I was making so much pasta that people started wanting to buy it.

I realized that pasta does not fall under the cottage food laws in Wisconsin. I had to actually find commercial kitchen space, and that's how Semolina was born.

 

You carry quite a few specialty items in addition to pasta. What are you particularly proud to showcase?

There's a brand, Bona Furtuna, in Corleone, Sicily. As far as I know, we're the only store that carries their products in Wisconsin. We actually just visited the farm, and the president of the company was there. We got to go out into the olive groves and pick wild fennel from the side of the road. Their olive oils are top-notch. They are a wonderful organic 1% for the Planet, B-Corp, the whole nine yards. So we're very proud to carry those products. 

I also carry olive oil from a company called Mandranova, which is another farm in Agrigento that we visited. 

Both farms are very modern. Everything is temperature-controlled, so the oil doesn't get too hot as it's being crushed and mixed. The polyphenols stay at their highest levels, and they are doing everything to make the highest-quality ingredients or products. 

We also carry some fantastic honeys from Sardinia. It's a mother-and-daughter team, Maria and Daniela. Maria is around 80 years old. She was a little spitfire and yelled at me for not knowing more Italian.

I love working with these small producers we get to visit and get to know. Also, while we were there, we went to a winery called Quignones in Licata. I can't carry Alfredo's wines, but I can carry some of his food products. So we are able to go there and have a wonderful afternoon with him. It's so great to be able to build these relationships with producers, and they're so happy to have their products in the U.S., too.

 

 

What are the most popular products you offer?

Probably the most popular is the culurgiones [Sardinia's answer to the ravioli]. I make them every Sunday, and people have gotten used to having those available. My favorite is probably pappardelle, the simple egg pasta. I like the wide noodles. 

 

How did you learn to make pasta?

My grandma used to make pasta. Not often, but it's one of those things that I took upon myself to learn. I didn't take any classes. I just started making it and just figuring it out on my own. 

My husband and I went to Rome about six years ago and took a cooking class. It was about pasta-making and a bunch of other things, which really bolstered my confidence that I could do this myself and show other people how to do it as well.

 

Tell us about your pasta-making classes.

The classes in the shop are limited to a maximum of six people. I offer three different classes: classic egg dough, hand-shaped pasta, and ravioli. 

Each class starts out with making the dough from scratch. While the dough rests, we go into the kitchen. I show everyone how to make a sauce, and then we cook up pasta I had made earlier in the day. Everybody sees how I cook, sauce, and serve it. Then, they get their bowl of pasta and a glass of wine or some Italian non-alcoholic beverage. When we're done with that, I answer all of their questions about olive oil and cheese and whatever. During that time, we go back to the pasta room and do all of the rolling out and shaping. They can see the salt I'm putting in the water to boil and how I'm not rinsing the pasta. They can see my method of cooking so that they can replicate that at home.

 

What do you hope participants take away?

I want people to actually learn and walk away feeling like they can do it at home. And I know a lot of them do because they come back and buy flour to make everything at home. So, I am confident that people leave with the knowledge they need.

I try to teach them about the ingredients we're using so that they know how to buy olive oil and how to use it. They don't let it sit in their pantry for a year because they want to save it for a special occasion. It's food; you use it. 

I also just want them to feel comfortable and have a really fun time while they're doing it and that they can call me and ask me things. When they come into the shop, I want them to know that we have carefully curated, we have tasted things, and we have talked to the people who grow these things, so you can trust us when we tell you this is a good product. 

 

 

 

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Wheat first arrived in Sicily around the 3rd millennium B.C. Due to its ideal cultivation conditions, the region became known as the Breadbasket of the Roman Empire.

 

By 2021, the island had become Italy's second-largest durum wheat-producing region, with 343,500 hectares under cultivation and a production of 931,800 tons.

 

You may have seen durum on the back of a box of pasta. It's frequently coarsely ground into semolina, a common ingredient in Sicilian bread and pasta. 

 

One of the more popular semolina pastas is cavatelli, also known as cavateddi. This Sicilian version of gnocchi is served with plain red or meaty sauce. I recently caught up with private chef and cooking instructor Antonella La Macchia to learn more about this specialty and what differentiates her cavatelli recipe from typical gnocchi. 

 

 

What is your background?

I was born in Catania, Sicily, and live in Florence, Tuscany. I moved here 23 years ago because I married a Florentine, and I have been teaching cooking classes in Florence for more than 10 years now. 

What is the difference between cavatelli and gnocchi?

It's funny. When people take the class, they usually talk about potatoes and gnocchi because they are the more traditional or famous.

 

If I talk with my mother, gnocchi are completely different. Our gnocchi in Sicily, cavatelli, are made with semolina and water. The dough is very chewy and has a nice consistency. Of course, the flavor is completely different because we have the semolina flour. Also, the sauce that they require is different. Most of the time, Sicilian gnocchi are served with meat sauce because they have this consistency and want a strong sauce.

 

The shape is different because when we make gnocchi, we use a tool called rigagnocchi. You use the board to make a little cavity that holds the sauce. That's the reason why they're called cavatelli.

 

Semolina pasta can also be a little bit trickier than regular pasta. The regular pasta, the pasta from the north—ravioli and tagliatelli—has the classic dough with flour and egg. When we talk about pasta from the south of Italy, from Puglia to Sicily, it's important to balance the right amount of water to obtain the right consistency. This shape is usually made by pushing the pasta on a wooden board with your hand or knife. If the consistency is not perfect, it won't be easy to have the shape of the pasta you want.  

 

Once you have a good dough, you can make the cavatelli with your hands or use the rigagnocchi. It is important to get the right shape because, of course, if this pasta is thicker, it can be pretty chewy.

What makes this recipe Sicilian?

When I teach about pasta, I always say that through the pasta, we can see the difference between the countries. You can see easily that this country was divided for many years, and the food from the north and the south is very different.  

 

When we talk about fresh pasta, the first difference that we can say is that most of the fresh pasta that we find in the north is made with white flour. What makes this pasta really Sicilian for me is the use of semolina and, of course, the sauce. We don't have butter and sage; ours is mostly red, so tomato-based.  

What do you hope the readers will take away from this recipe?

What I like, and I always talk about this during my class, is that at the end of the day, the most important thing is when a recipe becomes yours. It makes the food real and, in a certain way, eternal.

 

>>Get Antonella's Sicilian gnocchi recipe here!<<

 

 

 

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A symbol of the city of Catania and typical of Sicilian cuisine, pasta alla Norma is the perfect eggplant dish. The recipe is simple, marrying tomato and eggplant with basil, garlic, and sometimes red pepper flakes. It's bound to convert eggplant haters to aubergine aficionados. 

Christina Pirello of PBS's Christina Cooks: Back to the Cutting Board was in the eggplant-hater camp—until she tasted so-called melanzane in Sicily. 

Christina, who also leads food tours of Puglia and Sicily, adds lentils to her twist on this Sicilian classic.

 

She took time out to share the history of pasta alla Norma, how to prepare eggplant, and what she hopes you'll take away from her plant-based, protein-packed aubergine recipe.

 

 

Tell us about your background. Where is your Italian family from?

The Italian side of my family is from Castelemare di Stabia, a bayside town outside Naples. They came from the poor side of town, as most of our ancestors did. My nonna, Elena Cordasco, was the youngest of seventeen (yup, seventeen). They came to America in groups and she was in the last group at 13 years old.

 

My nonno, who I adored, Girardo Stabile, was one of seven children and came to the U.S. when he was 16. They met when my nonna was 16, and they didn't know each other in Italy, even though they were from the same town. They married and had three children: my mother and her sister and brother.

 

We were always with my nonni. They lived either upstairs or next door, so they were a constant in my life, as were my nonna's nine sisters. I loved to be with them and my mother in the kitchen. My family always yelled as a way to communicate, but I noticed in the kitchen that they sang, laughed, and worked symphonically together smoothly, with no issues. That was what I wanted.

 

Describe your experiences in Sicily. What left a lasting impression?

My husband is Sicilian on both sides of his family, as far back as he can trace, so our experiences there often revolve around family. His aunts and cousins are all amazing cooks. I guess the most lasting impression is that the food in Sicily is pure magic. The simplest ingredients, cooked fresh with great olive oil, create feast after feast. I was not a big fan of eggplant (I know it's blasphemous) until I had it cooked for me in Sicily. The tomatoes are little pieces of heaven, and the oil is like gold.
 

Why didn't you like eggplant, and what changed that?

As a kid, my Neopolitan family used eggplant all the time, and I just did not care for the texture of it. When I traveled to Sicily and saw and tasted what they did with eggplant, my mind was changed, and I fell in love with it.

 

What is the history of pasta alla Norma?

It was named in honor of the native of Catania, Vincenzo Bellini, the composer of the opera Norma. It is said that the Italian writer Nino Martoglio exclaimed, "This is a real 'Norma!'" meaning a masterpiece (like the opera) when he tasted the dish. However, the name was not dedicated to this dish until decades after Martoglio's death.

 

Where did you encounter the best pasta alla Norma dish?

Ah, this makes me laugh, as I think the best Norma is mine! I add red lentils to the sauce to make it thick and rich-tasting, and I love it. That said, my husband's late Aunt Pina made a great Norma. There was just something about the way she cooked that lent a delicacy to this hearty dish.

 

What inspired you to create your particular version of pasta alla Norma?

I wanted to make the sauce thick and rich, and of course, we wanted to add protein, as we are both active. Since red lentils break down easily, they were the perfect solution.

 

How do you ensure the eggplant remains tender and not too oily when cooking?

I soak my eggplant in salted water and rinse it well before cooking. This not only removes the alkaloid "solanine," making the eggplant easier to digest, but it also makes it more porous, so you don't need to bathe it in oil as you cook, and it still comes out richly flavored.

 

What do you hope readers will take away from this dish?

I would like people to realize that you can, in fact, make a perfect pasta dish…one that is good for you, delicious, and gives you all the nutrition you need. You can break with tradition and create a new dish that honors tradition as well.

 

>>Get Christina's pasta alla Norma recipe here!<<

 

 

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It was our first night in Palermo. My husband and I were on our honeymoon but chose to visit with relatives, who insisted we stay in their lovely home. My cousin Patrizia sat us down for supper: breaded cauliflower pasta with pine nuts, raisins, and capers. 

 

"This is just like my mother's recipe!" I exclaimed.

 

"It is a family recipe," Patrizia said with a smile. 

 

So, for years, that's what I thought—until I researched Sicilian recipes for my novels. While I have yet to see this particular cauliflower pasta on a restaurant menu, I uncovered a bevy of similar Sicilian cauliflower pasta recipes, such as Pasta chi Vruoccoli Arriminati.

 

But none had the capers, which my mother says add the slightly bitter and salty tanginess that's essential to counter the sweetness of the raisins. Then I stumbled on Michele Di Pietro's MangiaWithMichele.com recipe for Sicilian pasta with cauliflower, pine nuts, raisins, and—bingo!—capers.

 

Michele, a New Jersey-based cookbook author, food writer, menu and recipe developer, professional chef, culinary consultant, and former certified public accountant, was gracious enough to take time out to chat with me about this recipe. We discussed her twist on a family classic, the essential ingredients, why you should overcook cauliflower, and what she hopes readers will take away.

 

Tell me about your background.

I am. I'm 100% Italian-American. I'm half Sicilian and half Abruzzese. My mom's parents came from Sicily separately at the turn of the century when they were young, and my dad's parents were immigrants as well. 

 

What is the history of Sicilian Pasta with Cauliflower, Pine Nuts, Raisins, and Capers for you and your family?

My mom used to make a dish that was sort of like an overcooked mash, kind of partially mashed cauliflower with lots of onions. She would finish it off with bread crumbs, and it was really, really good. And she would make a pasta with broccoli that is also very similar to that, whereas the broccoli is overcooked and it becomes sort of like the sauce for the dish. It's mixed with Pecorino. And so this is kind of a combination of those two ideas.

For me, it's like the way that she would make pasta with broccoli, and also thinking of the pasta with cauliflower dish that she used to make me.

I am a trained chef. I worked in the food service for many, many years, and most of my job was for many, many years was innovation and trying to come up with different ways and interesting ways of doing food to make things interesting. So it's just ingrained in me to always try and do things a little bit differently. 

Crispy capers, pine nuts, raisins, all three of those are very Sicilian ingredients, but the way that they're put together in this pasta is not really traditional. I think the traditional dish just has pine nuts and raisins and often anchovies, which I left out. So it's basically, it's kind of inspired by a traditional dish with my personal history based on my mom's dishes. And then, me wanting to add my own twist with the pine nuts and the Marcella wine-soaked raisins. 

 

Why are the pine nuts, raisins, and capers important in this recipe, and how do they contribute to the overall flavor?

Well, they contribute both in flavor and texture. Texture is a really important part of flavor. And so, for me, the capers are important because they add brininess and saltiness and, therefore, also umami, but they add texture because they're crispy. So that makes it interesting. The raisins add a pop of sweetness in a place where you wouldn't expect sweetness. And eating the savory pasta dish and the Marcella wine, like I said, that's just sort of like a fun, interesting twist on it, which just adds a little bit of extra flavor. They're important because they're all rooted in traditional Sicilian ingredients. 

 

You intentionally overcook your cauliflower. Why?

A lot of Italian Americans and Italians tend to overcook their vegetables, which is the exact opposite of what I learned in cooking school. I often think about, oh my god, Chef So-and-So from cooking school would fall over if they saw me cooking my vegetables like this. Why do Italian Americans and Italians tend to overcook their vegetables? I'm not really sure, but they do. And what happens to it in a dish like this is if it becomes part of the sauce. It's really a vegetable-based sauce. And it'll become more of a sauce the more you overcook the cauliflower because it allows you to mash it or smash it with a fork. And when we combine it [with the other ingredients], that will emulsify it, thicken it, and kind of coat the pasta, which is why it's really nice with the hearty pasta; it holds onto this heavier-in-the-texture sauce.

 

My mother uses breadcrumbs when she makes this dish. Can you speak to why Sicilians use breadcrumbs?

Well, it goes back to cucina povera, the combination of using what you have and not having a lot. So, back in the day, they didn't always have Pecorino Romano. I'm sure they didn't have any cheese at all, but they had leftovers from bread. So breadcrumbs were a way to add a little something to different dishes, a lot of times in pasta.

There are two iconic pasta dishes for [St. Joseph's Day]. One of them, which I also have a recipe for on my website, has breadcrumbs and anchovies. It's very, very simple. It's spaghetti with breadcrumbs and anchovies, and it doesn't have cheese. It's just toasted breadcrumbs, and it gives you all that texture. With that dish, specifically, the breadcrumbs represent the sawdust of St. Joseph, who's the patron saint of Sicily.

 

What do you hope readers will take away from your recipe?

I hope that all my recipes bring people together around the table. And I guess the last thing is I always just want people to make the recipe their own. I like all my recipes to be an inspiration. And just like I was inspired by the recipes and I made recipes my own, I would like them to do the same thing. So if they don't want to have crispy capers or they don't like capers, leave the capers out. Or if they want to make this recipe with broccoli instead of cauliflower, then do it.

 

>>Get Michele's Sicilian Pasta with Cauliflower, Pine Nuts, Raisins, and Capers recipe here!<<

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