Pasta with Lamb and Saffron
A Recipe from Christine Smallwood's An Appetite for Umbria
Not just saffron and lamb, but also wild fennel, and Marsala wine, in this unusual pasta recipe from Spoleto in Umbria.
Umbrian cuisine is most famously characterised by two products: pork and truffles. Both of them come from Norcia. The pork comes from the black Umbrian pig, and is often made into sausages or preserved. The much prized black truffles grow widely here and frequently feature in all sorts of dishes. They’re celebrated each year in Norcia’s black truffle festival.
An Appetite for Umbria
But there’s more to the food of Umbria than that – and the full variety of the cuisine is celebrated in Christine Smallwood’s book An Appetite for Umbria (pub. BDP, £19.99). This recipe (which appears here with permission), is for pasta with lamb, saffron and wild fennel. It comes from Il Panciolle, a restaurant in Spoleto, which has a terrace with fabulous views over the surrounding countryside. The recipe uses garganelli pasta but if you can’t get that then any short pasta, such as penne or maccheroncini, will do.
Garganelli Pasta with Lamb, Saffron and Wild Fennel - Recipe
Ingredients Serves 4
- 300g lamb
- juice 1 large lemon
- 1 small onion
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- rosemary, chopped
- wild fennel seeds
- ½ glass dry Marsala
- 375g garganelli pasta
- pinch saffron
- knob of butter
- grated Parmesan
Method
- Mince the lamb and put it into a bowl of cold water and lemon juice (this softens and reduces the fat of slightly older lamb and removes the strong taste). Leave the meat in the water and lemon juice of the time that it takes you to finish mincing it.
- Drain the meat and put it in a saucepan. Cook over a gentle heat and drain away the first extract of liquid. Chop the onion and fry in olive oil in a separate pan.
- Once the onion has softened, add the minced meat. Brown everything slightly, season and add the rosemary and the wild fennel seeds. Mix thoroughly.
- Add the Marsala and cook for 15-20 minutes for it to evaporate. In the meantime, cook the pasta with a pinch of saffron.
- When the sauce and the pasta are ready, put a knob of butter in a new pan and mix the pasta and sauce together. Serve with the grated Parmesan.
In the book, Christine Smallwood suggests that you drink a full bodied White or a young Red wine with this Umbrian dish. Perhaps some Cervaro della sala Castello della Sala Antinori (white) or Montefalco Rosso Antonelli (red).
Another Umbrian recipe you might like to try is Chianina beef with Sagrantino Sauce. You can also enjoy recipes from Christine Smallwood's companion book to this title: An Appetite for Puglia.
