Macaroni with sardella recipe.
Sardella is a typical product of the town of Crucoli and the Crotone area; it is also known as nudicella or rosamarina. For its preparation, you need to make a sauce with bianchetti, the newborns of sardines, and chili powder; it comes in both spicy and sweet versions; in August, the festival takes place in Crucoli, featuring street food. Other known recipes include bread and sardella crostini or Calabrian pitta with the same. It is also used purely to season tagliatelle.
While in Calabria, I tried to make my own recipe.
The result is exquisite and unique.
With this sauce, we can also season other pasta shapes, but maccheroni al ferretto” guarantees a dish full of flavor and tradition.
To create this main course, I used local products, featuring colors and flavors between sweet and spicy.
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian Regional
- Region: Calabria
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
Sardella, Tropea onion, zucchini, olives… salt, olive oil
- 14 oz macaroni
- 2 Tropea red onions
- 1 zucchini
- 3.5 oz black olives (pitted)
- 5.3 oz sardella
- 4 green peppers (I used Tondo di Calabria, slightly larger than the pepper used for stuffing)
- to taste flour
- to taste oregano
Tools
A pan and the pot for pasta…
Steps
The first thing you should do is: put the pot with water for the pasta on the stove. Salt it and cover. Now you can focus on the sauce; slice the onions into rings, leaving about ten of the larger ones for decoration; slice the zucchini with a peeler and salt them slightly to extract the water. Sauté the onions in a little olive oil.
Meanwhile, cut the peppers into strips and add them along with the olives to the sautéed onions. If you like, add a spicy chili pepper and cook for 6–7 minutes.
Now add the sardella to the rest of the sauce and mix well. Check the salt. Cover and wait for the pasta to cook.
In the meantime, fry the floured onion rings and the zucchini slices, also floured; they should be crispy. Set them aside.
After cooking the macaroni, add them to the sauce; if necessary, add a little pasta cooking water.
Serve with onion rings and crispy zucchini.
As mentioned above, you can change the type of pasta. Quick cooking, and any leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator and sautéed in a pan the next day.
