
I didn't frequently perform this recipe until my father had been saved from a hearth attack by these cavati with pork gravy. I'll tell you this tale briefly.
We were here in Scoglitti and we was having dinner. It was actually a little party, there were relatives came from Australia and cousins from Florida. They were all very happy to be returned in Sicily for a little holiday, so my father and my mother had cooked for all salami, cavati with pork gravy and grilled sausages. And a 5 kg cassata. There were also a lot red wine.
My father was playing the squeeze box, he's really a maestro.
But I was worried and I told him: "The old squeeze is too much for you daddy, it's really weigh. You are not a young boy anymore, why don't you stay quiet and eat your cavati?"
My father was quite fatigued but fortunately get down the sqeeze box and catched the fork.
Just in time!
He felt ill and we brought him at the hospital immediately. Fortunately was only tachycardia, the physician in the hospital told us my father was saved by Mediterranean diet.
In fact, we consume only Mediterranean pork.
But now stop with thick talk and let's go with cavati!
You need:
for the cavati pasta
- 1 kg cornflour (better abound then in short supply)
- water
Mix water and cornflour until you have a firm dough. Make with your hands long worms having a diameter of 2 cm, and cut them in little blocks. Finally squeeze this blocks with a fork: here we are cavati! Spread them on with a lot of cornflour and cook the pork gravy.
for the pork gravy:
-2 kg pork bacon
-1 kg pork chuk
-1 celery
-3 onions
-2 carrots
-1 garlic head
-olive oil
-bay laurel, 4 leafs
-tomatoes, 1 kg
-a glass of red wine
Cut carrots, celery and onion and fry them with olive oil, low fire, for 30 minutes, adding water if needed. Then cut the meat, boost up the fire and add to fried vegetables. Then add a glass of red wine. When the wine is boiled off, add pealed tomatoes, take down the flame and cover. Now you can go to play scopa (or poker, after all you are Americans): your gravy must stay on fire for 3 hours. Once in a while ensure yourself it's not too much dry. If it is, add some water.
Ok, now you have to boil your cavati. A lot of water, a big pot are needed. Bring water to boiling point, add a handful of salt and throw in the cavati. They will be good when will float up. Take off them from water and mix with pork gravy. Grate on cheese and eat them quickly.
Now I know that cavati can save a life, so I always cook them for my father.
Enjoy!
10/18/2007
A cure-all for your heart: cavati with pork gravy
cooked for you by
RENZO
a
8:42 AM
Labels: cavatelli, cavati, italian recipe, pasta, pork gravy, ragù, sicilian recipe
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3 Comments:
Hello! Two questions from the nosy Aussie who now has Dean Martin singing in her head ad nauseum. Is the pork chuk the same as pork belly? And is the cornflour the nasty thin white gluey sort or the more creamy stuff that is used to make tortillas? I await your response with gratitude and appreciation of your vast Sicilian cooking skills!! ps. regards to your dad
Ok,ok. I should ask my cousin Carmelina to revise my english before posting. Chuck: it's shoulder. You need both shoulder and belly (bacon?)
Cornflour AKA "durum wheat", flour from wheat, no tortillas, please! Bedda matri, cavati with tortilla flour, my grandmother Maria is rolling in the coffin.
Good Arvo Sicilian. Thankyou for that clarification. I hope your granny Maria is not rolling cavati in the coffin!
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