If you are not Sicilian-born and bred, then you probably haven’t heard all that much about pasta con i tenerumi. In reality, it’s a soup, usually eaten in summer with a particular ingredient. (Yes, it is traditionally eaten hot, though many prefer a cold version because of the summer heat.) This particular ingredient? It’s tenerumi, which in Sicilian dialect refers to the sprouts and tender leaves of a long variety of zucchini called serpente zucchini. The recipe for pasta con i tenerumi comes from the rustic cuisine of Ragusa, that was then transformed into a gastronomic specialty in the Palermo area. Shall we try it together?
The Recipe: Pasta con i tenerumi
Ingredients:
11 oz tenerumi, 1 lb ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced, 11 oz long zucchini, 4 oz caciocavallo ragusano cheese, Extra-virgin olive oil, 7 oz spaghetti, broken or chopped, 1 clove of garlic, Salt
Method:
Clean the tenerumi and soak them in cold water. In the meantime, peel the serpente zucchini and cut into small pieces.
In a separate saucepan, brown the clove of garlic (with the skin removed) in extra-virgin olive oil. Remove it and add the diced tomatoes. Let cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, and season with salt. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Bring water to boil in a medium pot. Add the tenerumi and the zucchini. Cook for 10 minutes. Then add the tomatoes and chopped spaghetti. Continue cooking for another 15 minutes. Serve the soup with cubes of caciocavallo cheese, making sure they don’t melt completely!