Fregola pasta with sauteed chicory greens, mussels and sun-dried tomatoes

• 10 minutes to prepare • 10 minutes to cook • Serves 4

10 MINUTES 

I thought we could welcome hot weather with one of my favorite recipes. It's the perfect lunchy dish, and it's made with fregola.
Fregola is a beautiful, tasty Sardinian pasta made from hard durum wheat flour - rolled, sun-dried, and toasted to a mix of shades of yellow, gold, and brown.
The pasta is rustic and nutty, each grain with a rough surface adept at catching flavor. It's so good.

Cooking fregola as you would risotto rice means a flavorsome result; it’s well worth the effort of cooking what is a multi-stage recipe. It’s not difficult, I promise.
Most people consider fregola with clams a signature dish of tradition, especially down in the South. In the current recipe I am going to present a version of mine of the dish, varied by adding mussels and sauteed chicory greens. Simple, yet stylish this dish is a good example of balance between flavours.

Here's what you will need for the 4-serving recipe:

400 g fregola pasta
500 g frozen mussels, already cleaned
400 g chicory greens
100 ml white wine
100 g sun-dried tomatoes preserved in EVO oil
salt
EVO oil

1. To prepare the fregola pasta with greens and mussels, start by cooking chicory: trim off about 1cm off the stems before washing. Wash the leaves and drain, then cut them in half if you prefer
2. Cook the greens in a large pot of boiling water (salted) for 5 minutes, drain well. Save the water for later, warm
3. In a medium frying pan add 3 tablespoons of EVO oil, 2 cloves of garlic and hot pepper flakes - if you like-, cook 1 minute, then add the chicory and salt. Toss gently until soft through 5 minutes, then keep aside
4. Proceed with the mussels'preparation: put them in a large pan with 3 tablespoons of EVO oil, 2 cloves of garlic and white wine. Let them to braise over medium heat, then take them off and cover with a lid. Be careful not to make the water produced while cooking to reduce too much: it will become the basis for our fregola
5. Add fregola pasta to the pan, and cook it as you would do for a risotto: add one ladle of boiling salted water (the one you used to boil chicory) at a time, and proceed with the cooking for about 20 minutes
6. When fregola is ready, add the sauteed chicory and some sun-dried tomatoes, chopped. Your fregola is ready to make you happy!

In the following, Nutrition Facts of this dish are indicated. Data is provided per serving.