Orecchiette is a simple ingredient with a big impact. It's more toothsome than many standard pasta shapes with a pleasing texture that adds a touch of easy elegance to your dining routine. Best of all, it's affordable even if it does feel a little fancy. Because it's a shorter, thicker cut of pasta, orecchiette pairs extraordinarily well with richer ingredients, hearty cruciferous vegetables, specifically kale, broccoli, and broccoli rabe. Get out of your mealtime rut with these simple, yet satisfying orecchiette recipes.

A pasticciotto (Italian pronunciation: [pastitˈtʃɔtto]; plural pasticciotti) is a type of filled Italian pastry. Depending on the region, they are traditionally filled with either ricotta cheese or egg custard. In some Italian-American communities, they are called pusties.

Pasticciotti are approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick.They are typically served as a breakfast item, but may also be eaten throughout the day, and are a traditional pastry in Apulia. According to a number of sources, pasticciotti should be eaten warm

Made with two discs of buttery puff and stuffed with béchamel, mozzarella and just a touch of tomato, the rustico is generally eaten in Lecce and the Salento for breakfast or as an afternoon or late night snack. The best analogy I've come across for describing this addictively tasty pastry is a large vol-au-vent with a lid. There are limited written sources available regarding the history of this beloved southern Pugliese snack. Yet, unlike many traditional local dishes, which are often of peasant origin, the rustico was probably invented in the kitchens of the Leccese aristocracy in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. Telltale signs include the puff pastry and béchamelsauce, French culinary inventions made with butter, an ingredient only the very wealthy had access to at the time.

Here’s a healthy dish from Salento for you. Simple, poor, tasty, very fast.

The traditional frisella (or frisa) is a piece of hard bread which is baked twice and cut into two halves before the second baking. It is made with wheat or barley flour. It can be bought in any bakery in the Province of Lecce (also known as Salento), but in different forms is available also in other regions of Southern Italy.

We sell it online, a top-quality variant made with flour “Senatore Cappelli”.

First of all, get some tomatoes (it works with all kind, but normally ciliegini, pachino or San Marzano), then cut them into small pieces

Put the frisella in a bowl full of water (ideally filtered water) for 1-2 minutes so that it becomes softer. It’s hard to eat without dipping in water first, unless you’re eating ‘friselline’ who are normally milder, so they can be consumed also as a snack (we sell them here). Don’t leave it too long in water, or it’ll become too soft.

Strain the frisella, put it on a plate and add the tomatoes. Squeeze some tomato juice on top of it.

Add a pinch of salt.

Sprinkle the origanum and add some capers (if you don’t like them, you can skip this part).

Dress the frisella with extravergine olive oil.

This is the basic frisella but you can add other ingredients, such as mozzarella, sottaceti (peppers, aubergines, mushrooms, olives) or tuna in olive oil, to make its taste richer.

If you are on a boat, you can also drench the frisella in the sea.