It’s enough to go back 20 years; at that time even the farmsteads around Brescia, and throughout Italy, that didn’t have pigs would buy them especially to make incredible local salami. Each family had an expert butcher in the house, and with the leftover salami filling they would prepared simple and cheap dishes, but rich in taste, like the bigoli with pestöm.
Bigoi con pestöm recipe
Ingredients
For bigoli: 11 oz of white 00 flour, 4 oz of wholemeal white flour, 4 whole eggs, salt
For the seasoning: 1 lb of fresh pestöm salami paste, 2 cups of white wine, 2 tablespoons of tomato purée, 2 bay leaves, 1 celery rib, 1 onion, 1 carrot, grated cheese, oil, butter, salt
Method
- Add the eggs to the flours, a pinch of salt and knead until you get a uniform mixture. Cover with a transparent film and leave to rest in the refrigerator for half an hour.
- Pass the dough through the bigoli die, also known as the bigolaro press, distribute the strands on a tray and flour them lightly to prevent them from sticking together. If you don’t have the specific equipment you can pull the sheet of dough till it’s 2 mm thick, cut it into strips and form large spaghetti with your hands. Otherwise, just buy some great fresh bigoli and don’t tell anyone.
- Chop the celery, carrot and onion, and fry them in a pan with a drizzle of oil and a knob of butter until browned. Coarsely crumble the fresh salami paste (known as pestöm) in the pan and cook over a high heat for a few minutes, add the white wine and allow it to evaporate.
- Then add 2 tablespoons of passata diluted with a little hot water, put in the bay leaves and cook for 1 hour over low heat, adjusting salt. Cook the bigoli in plenty of salted water, drain them and toss them in the pan with the sauce and sprinkle a handful of grated cheese. Buon appetito!