ORECCHIETTE CON POMODORO FRESCO E RUCOLA (Orecchiette with fresh tomato sauce and rocket)

One of my passion is travelling, so in my life I have travelled a lot with my family! I love visiting always new places, not for the place in its self or to take photos and photos near monuments, but to see how people live in those places. Speaking of food, I'm not the typical italian tourist, who arrives in a area that is in the opposite part of the world and goes to the first italian restaurant he finds!

I always choose the most most typical restaurant of that area! To do this, I always ask the local people to suggest me a good place to go, but, if I forget to specify what kind of place I'd like to go and I tell that I'm Italian they always suggest me an Italian restaurant and they tell me that in that place I will find the best pasta dish of the town.

It happens! Always!

So I have understood that the most famous dish about Italian food is pasta!

It is! It's true! We Italians just can't live without pasta. We eat it everyday! 

So today I'd like to share with you my favourite pasta summer recipe! 

This recipe is SPECIAL AND PERFECT using fresh pasta like orecchiette, but you can do it with all kind of pasta, fresh or not.

ORECCHIETTE CON POMODORO FRESCO E RUCOLA (Orecchiette with fresh tomato sauce and rocket)

Orecchiette are also known as Ricchitell, this is its dialect word. They are typical of Puglia Region, that is in the south of Italy.

Rucola (Rocket) is a wonderful plant with a piquancy taste, a gift from God for us with a lot of healthy properties:

1. It's useful to depurate and tone up the body (wonderful to win the summer heat).
2. It's digestive.
3. It's diuretic.
4. It's full of vitamine C.
5. It whets the appetite.

Now I'll show you the recipe with a photo tutorial!

This 

Ingredients:

• orecchiette
• fresh tomatoes
• rocket
• garlic
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• Parmesan cheese           
  
  

Directions:

Step 1: wash the tomatoes.

Step 2: Chop the tomatoes and put all in a big skillet adding also the garlic, salt and some extra virgin olive oil.

Step 3: Cover the skillet with a lid and cook with a medium flame.

Step 4: while you are cooking tomatoes,  wash the rocket in fresh water.

Step 5 : divide the stalks from the leaves. Please keep only the leaves and throw the stalks.

Step 6: when the tomatoes are pretty cooked, put the rocket in the skillet and go along with the cooking.

You will have this.

Step 7: boil a lot of water in a soup pot, add salt...

...and, as we say, "Cala la pasta" that is cook the pasta.

Step 8: after 3-4 minutes, drain the pasta; here I have used fresh pasta, so  its cooking time is really short. Just in case, taste the cooking point.

Step 9: put the orecchiette in the skillet, add Parmisan cheese, mix well and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Buon appetito!!