Orecchiette alla Barese con Pomodoro Fresco

Ingredients

• For the orecchiette
• 300 g semolina (semola di grano duro rimacinata)
• 150 ml water, warm
• For the sauce
• 500 g cherry tomatoes, Pachino or datterino variety, halved
• 60 ml extra-virgin olive oil, Pugliese DOP, aggressive and grassy; divided — some for cooking, remainder raw at service
• 1 small bunch fresh basil, torn, not chopped; added off heat only
• At service
• 40 g ricotta salata, lightly grated

Method

1. 1
   Mound the semolina on a work surface and work in the warm water gradually, kneading until the dough is smooth, firm, and no longer tacky — approximately 10 minutes. Wrap and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. The dough is ready when it holds an indent without springing back.
2. 2
   Pinch off a small piece of dough and roll it into a rope roughly 1 cm in diameter. Cut into pieces about 1 cm long. Place the blade of a blunt knife or a palette knife on a piece at a 45° angle; press firmly and drag the blade toward you so the dough curls around the blade and forms an ear shape. Slip it off and invert it over the thumb to cup it. Repeat. Lay formed orecchiette on a lightly semolina-dusted surface. This is where the dish lives or dies: the forming action must be decisive — a hesitant drag produces a flat disc rather than a cupped ear, and the cup is what captures the sauce.
3. 3
   Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a rolling boil. The water should be heavily salted. Cook the fresh orecchiette until they float and the outer surface is tender but the pasta still yields with a soft, slight resistance at the centre — fresh pasta will take only 3 to 5 minutes. Reserve 100 ml of the starchy cooking water before draining.
4. 4
   While the pasta cooks, heat a wide pan over high heat. Add enough olive oil to coat the base generously. Add the halved cherry tomatoes cut side down. Cook over high heat for no more than 8 minutes: the tomatoes should burst, release their juice, and begin to form a sauce, but must retain some shape and the bright, fresh acidity of raw fruit. The sauce is done when the tomatoes have collapsed at their edges but are not fully broken down — it should look like a burst, jammy pool, not a cooked passata.
5. 5
   Remove the pan from the heat immediately at 8 minutes. Tear the basil directly into the pan. The residual heat is sufficient to wilt it; the basil must not cook. The correct moment is confirmed by smell: the basil fragrance rises sharply as soon as it contacts the hot sauce.
6. 6
   Add the drained orecchiette to the pan. Toss to combine, adding reserved pasta water a little at a time only if needed to loosen the sauce to a consistency that coats each ear. The sauce should pool visibly inside the cup of each orecchietta. Taste for salt.
7. 7
   Divide between four warmed plates. Finish each portion with a generous thread of raw Pugliese DOP olive oil and a light grating of ricotta salata. Serve immediately.