Salento, Puglia
The most distinctive pasta dish of the Salento: tria (ancient semolina pasta from the Arabic 'itriyya') cooked in two ways simultaneously — two-thirds of the raw pasta is boiled in the chickpea broth, one-third is deep-fried in olive oil until crisp and golden, then both are combined with the chickpeas in the pot. The fried tria adds a shatteringly crisp element to each spoonful. The technique — dividing the same dough into cooked and fried — produces an extraordinary textural contrast that is unique to the Salento.
Silky chickpea-soaked pasta and shatteringly crisp fried pasta combined in the same bowl — a 9th-century Arab pasta technique preserved in the heel of Italy, entirely unlike anything else
{"Tria dough: semolina rimacinata and water, no egg; cut into irregular 1cm strips, not uniform","Chickpeas cooked from scratch in water with rosemary, garlic, and a piece of dried chilli","Two-thirds of the tria cooked directly in the chickpea broth (they absorb and thicken the pot)","One-third of the tria fried in olive oil at 180°C until golden and crisp; drain","Combine: ladle chickpea-tria into bowls, scatter fried tria on top, drizzle with raw olive oil"}
{"The fried tria immediately loses crispness in contact with the wet chickpea broth — eat immediately","A few torn sage leaves fried in the same oil as the tria, scattered on top, add an aromatic dimension","Wild fennel in the chickpea broth is the purest Salentine version"}
{"Using the same cooking method for all the pasta — the textural contrast IS the dish","Thin, uniform tria — the irregular width creates varied textures in both the boiled and fried forms","Pre-frying and holding the crisp tria — they must go into the bowl within minutes of frying"}
La Cucina Salentina — Fernanda De Nigris