Recently, a friend gifted me with a basket of various kitchen gadgets and food goods. Included in the basket were two bags of fregola, a typical Sardinian pasta. Somewhere I had read and heard about fregola, but had never tried it. As I flipped through my cookbooks I found little in the way of recipes, other than an additive to soups. One book indicated fregola is a pasta made from semolina flour, and appears to look like a somewhat larger version of couscous--but the dough is hand rolled into balls and then lightly toasted, giving it a nutty flavor. I'm just sorry that I never tasted it sooner because it was wonderful. Move over couscous, you've been replaced!
I began this dish much like how I make risotto, and pretty much the way I cook--seldom measuring much, and began with a soffrito of sauteed minced onion, carrot, celery and anchiove paste in some olive oil. To this I added half cup white wine, 14 oz of chicken stock along with approximately 8 oz of fregola and gave it a few stirs. This I let simmer covered until the fregola cooked until just about aldente. As this simmered, in another pan I sauteed in olive oil three cloves minced garlic, with 1 1/2 lbs fresh shrimp until just pink and because I had extra on hand I added some fresh zucchini pieces along with roasted tomatoes along with a bit of chopped kale. A bit of ground pepper, and a few chopped sprigs of fresh thyme, rosemary and basil. I find that the anchiove plus shrimp is salt enough, so omitted it from my recipe.
Once the shrimp were done, I combined it to the fregola pot, stirred and added in some freshly grated pecorino cheese. I purposely left a bit of the stock in my pot and not all abosorbed by the fregola, and yet I didn't want to end up with a bowl of soup either, but do enjoy the addition of a crusty bread to a meal like this to sop up those wonderful flavors of the broth. It turned out just right to my liking..as there was very little if any leftovers.
A few days later, I was clearing out some older magazine additions. One issue dating back to 2003 had three recipes using fregola.. one with seared scallops, one with clams, and a delicious sounding cannelini bean and fregola soup that I'm now anxious to try, especially on days like today when our temps dipped to -10 and we woke to find our kitchen pipes had frozen overnight :( Not a happy camper here today. So I am on the hunt now for any recipes that include this very tasty pasta. If anyone has one, could you send it my way please? Thanks! Enjoy!
