Orecchiette

Italians do it best: This orecchiette recipe with mozzarella is proof.

Eggs become a silky, creamy sauce when they're tossed with hot pasta. Here, leeks add a nice spring touch to the traditional Roman dish.

Eggs become a silky, creamy sauce when they're tossed with hot pasta. Here, leeks add a nice spring touch to the traditional Roman carbonara dish.

This easy pasta salad recipe will be the hit of your next potluck.

This super-flavorful dish spins the flavors of shish barak—lamb and pine nut dumplings from the Levant—in a pasta direction.

Cut into small pieces, roasted cauliflower mingles with pasta, bacon, and Parmesan in this hearty, comforting twist on classic carbonara.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Italian classics, check out the videos.

Next time you feel like pasta and a salad for lunch, why not combine the two? I love the way the heat of the pasta warms the greens. I often make this when I’m cooking for one; just adjust all the ingredient quantities accordingly, and start with 6 ounces (about 1 cup) of dried pasta.

Orecchiette, meaning “little ears,” are small dome- shaped disks. They are the most common shape in Puglia. They’re used in many regional dishes there, including the one that inspired our Orecchiette with Fennel Sausage and Swiss Chard (page 180). Although this shape doesn’t look as intricate as some of the others, it is one of the most difficult to shape, which is probably why so few restaurants make their own. Following our instructions, you can’t fail. To get the desired texture on the surface of the pasta, we suggest you use a plastic cutting board. At the Osteria, we use a wooden cutting board that has been deliberately scored with a knife, which gives the orecchiette the texture we want.

Before we opened the Osteria, Matt made all of the dishes he wanted to put on the pasta menu for us to taste together. When he made this dish—his version of a classic from Puglia—I was absolutely convinced that the pasta program we were committing to was a good idea, and that Matt was absolutely the one to execute it. Evidently I’m not alone because this has been our most popular pasta since the day we opened. The chard you will prepare for this dish makes more than you will need for four servings, as does the Fennel Sausage recipe. It would be a good recipe to double and serve to a crowd—just remember to prepare the sauce and toss it with the pasta in two separate sauté pans.

Broccoli, a cruciferous vegetable, contains significant amounts of vitamins A and C, as well as calcium, iron, and riboflavin.