Orecchiette with sprouts and stuffing

Orecchiette pasta al forno with leftover sprouts and stuffing
The Puglia Kitchen Christmas crossover dish

Is it too much to say that orecchiette with leftover sprouts and stuffing is the best way to use up your leftover Brussels sprouts and Christmas stuffing? Not if you try our orecchiette al forno con sprouts and stuffing!

Orecchiette are Puglia’s iconic pasta shape. Named after their shape (orecchiette = “little ears”), orecchiette are used in the most traditional Puglia recipe that you will find on almost all restaurant menus across Puglia: orecchiette con cime di rapa.

Cime di rapa is translated as turnip tops, the literal translation. Cime = tops (cima, singular), rapa = turnip (rape, plural). In reality it is broccoli rabe (brassica rapa) rather than the green offshoot of a root vegetable. A bitter green, softer than broccoli, but distinctive. Cooked down into almost a pesto with olive oil, anchovies (melted into the olive oil as seasoning; don’t tell, no-one will ever know), garlic, chillies, cherry tomatoes, and the all important reserved pasta cooking water, it’s a surprisingly tasty dish.

Sometimes, according to mood, seasonality and whatever is at hand, we will add nugget size bites of Italian sausage, for orecchiette con salsiccia e cime di rapa.

That’s why our orecchiette al forno con sprouts and stuffing is the perfect leftovers dish and a classic Puglia Kitchen Christmas crossover. The sprouts and stuffing bites are natural substitutions for cime di rapa and sausage. The stuffing adds juicy fattiness (and the grounded earthiness of sage, ours is a sage and onion stuffing) while the sprouts have a similar composition to the cime di rapa.

For this you will need:

orecchiette | 500g, fresh or dried
olive oil | 100ml

tomato passata | 500ml
fresh tomatoes | 200g (optional)

How to:

Bring a deep pan of water to the boil. Salt it generously and add the orecchiette. Cook for the time it says on the packet, less 2 minutes or until al dente. Reserve some of the pasta water before draining.

In a wide frying pan, warm the olive oil. Add the garlic and gently fry until it becomes golden. Remove and discard. Add the anchovy and let it melt (it only takes a minute), plus the chilli. Then add the sliced leftover sprouts and coat in the oil. Let them heat up, stirring to make sure they don’t catch (add more olive oil if needed). Then add the stuffing broken into pieces and let it heat up for a few minutes. Stir gently – try to avoid breaking up the stuffing pieces. Add some of the reserved pasta liquor, place the lid on the pan, and put on a low heat.

After the sausage has heated through, add the drained orecchiette and stir slowly and carefully to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

It is possible to serve this now – if your stuffing is intact. Serve hot, and garnish with cacioricotta cheese (traditionally we don’t use Parmesan with orecchiette, but you can – although in this case pecorino is better, it has more flavour).

But, to continue, stir in the tomato sauce. If you are pressed for time, or still in holiday mode, just use passata (a quality one). However, we make our quick basic tomato sauce and stir it into the pasta mix. Because we had fresh tomatoes that were in need of use, we cut them into quarters and added them too (in which case, just use a little less sauce).

Garnish with some basil, and breadcrumbs, a generous drizzle of olive oil over the top and put it into a hot oven 180°C for 10-15 minutes to brown. Serve hot.

Amazing!

Our tip

Our sausage stuffing has sage which adds a deep earthiness to connect us with our land. But you can cook this dish at any time of the year substituting Italian sausage (with fennel seed) for the Christmas stuffing. With or without the sprouts. If you are just using the sausage, add a little dry white wine to help the sauce along its way. We tend to add a little fennel anyway, even with the sage stuffing, because we love the flavour with sausage!

Our treat

Serve and dollop a spoonful of crème fraîche and a generous handful of grated pecorino on top for some extra Christmas luxury. Or take it the other way completely with 30g of spicy ‘Nduja from Calabria (stir in at the end) for an earthier arrabbiata finish.