Sicilian Risotto-Style Pasta and Lentils.
In Sicily, the classic pasta and lentils is very different from the rest of Italy.
First, we use good Villalba lentils , thus zero-kilometer, cook other vegetables together with the legumes, and then the pasta is cooked together with the sauce, so the starch from both forms a creamy texture.
Since I have grandkids who don’t like to see pieces, the vegetables are blended at the end of cooking and then added to the soup.
Today I offer you a version made with a pressure cooker, you can cook the legumes traditionally if you want, but it will take longer, and later you’ll find the recipe with the Bimby.

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Cost: Very economical
Rest time: 12 Hours
Preparation time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 6
Cooking methods: Slow fire, Pressure cooker
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, and Spring

654.20 Kcal

calories per serving

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Energy 654.20 (Kcal)
Carbohydrates 123.10 (g) of which sugars 5.89 (g)
Proteins 31.46 (g)
Fat 6.61 (g) of which saturated 1.02 (g)of which unsaturated 1.43 (g)
Fibers 11.51 (g)
Sodium 137.88 (mg)

Indicative values for a portion of 400 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA^* and FoodData Central^** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.

^* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ^** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Sicilian Risotto-Style Pasta and Lentils Ingredients

let’s go shopping

10.5 oz Lentils
3.5 oz potato
3.5 oz carrot (3.5)
celery
1 clove garlic
3 cherry tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
salt
12 oz small pasta tubes (ridged)

Sicilian Risotto-Style Pasta and Lentils

Tools

what we need to make

Pressure cooker
Immersion blender
Bimby

Preparation of Sicilian Risotto-Style Pasta and Lentils

Traditional cooking recipe

I put the lentils in a pot with water about three times their volume, and soaked them for about 1 hour.
Peeled the potato, onion, carrot, garlic clove, washed the cherry tomatoes and the celery, and left them whole
As soon as the soaking period is over, I added the vegetables to the pot.
In this case, I used a pressure cooker and cooked for about 20 minutes from the moment it started to whistle, but if you want to use a regular pot, the cooking time must be doubled.
At the end of cooking, I removed the vegetables whole or almost whole, and placed them in a glass bowl.
They need to be blended
Reducing them to cream.
I set them aside while cooking the pasta, as this cream should be added only at the end of cooking, otherwise it will stick to the pot’s bottom.
I chose this type of pasta, the ridged ditalini, for 2 reasons: first, I need a spoon-sized pasta, and second, the ridges allow the sauce to adhere better to the pasta.
I added about 300 ml of water to the pot and brought the lentils back to a boil.
Then I added the pasta, always stirring and on a very low flame until fully cooked. I added the salt and a grind of pepper.
When the pasta was cooked, I added the vegetable cream that I had previously blended and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and mixed everything together.
Serve in a soup bowl, and if you wait for it to cool slightly, the soup will thicken even more. We say that “quagliata” is even better.
Here you have the Sicilian Risotto-Style Pasta and Lentils with a pot recipe
Soak the lentils at least the night before.
Place the onion, carrot, and celery in the bowl, chop: 5 sec./speed 8. Gather at the bottom with the spatula.
Add oil, cherry tomatoes, and cubed potato, sauté: 5 min./250°F/speed 1.
Add salt, vegetable broth cube, lentils, and water, cook: 35 min./212°F/reverse/speed spoon with the basket instead of the measuring cup to prevent splashing.
Open the bowl and add 7 oz of water. Cook for 4 min, at 212°F reverse speed spoon, then add the pasta and cook for the time indicated on the package at 212°F reverse speed spoon.
Serve the dish hot. Here is the Sicilian Risotto-Style Pasta and Lentils prepared with the Bimby