If you grew up in a Sicilian household in the US, chances are you know cucuzza. That impossibly long, pale green squash climbing over backyard fences every summer. What you may not know is what to do with the leaves. In Palermo, that question has one answer: pasta con i tenerumi.
Tenerumi are the tender young leaves and shoots of the cucuzza vine, and this dish is as Palermitan as it gets. It barely exists outside the city, even within Sicily itself. For years it stayed firmly local, the kind of thing you ate at your grandmother’s in August and nowhere else. Only recently has it started showing up in other parts of the island, and finding fresh tenerumi outside of Palermo is still genuinely difficult.
Which is why so many people grow the plant themselves. On balconies, in gardens, wherever they can. If you have cucuzza vines, you have tenerumi, and you have this soup.
It is worth mentioning that this is a summer soup. That sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. The broth is light, the greens are cooling, and the whole thing comes together in a way that actually makes sense on a hot day. Rich in minerals, easy on the stomach, and deeply satisfying in that quiet way that simple food often is.
Pasta con i Tenerumi
Course: Pasta, RecipesDifficulty: Easy4
servings20
minutes10
minutesIngredients
400g canned peeled tomatoes
1 bunch fresh tenerumi (about 10 sprigs)
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp EVO Oil
Salt to taste
250gr spaghetti (broken in small pieces – this time you are allowed to do that!)
Ricotta Salata
Directions
- Make the picchi pacchi sauce: Finely chop the garlic and sauté it in olive oil. If you prefer, you can leave the clove whole and remove it later, but chopped garlic will give the sauce much more flavour. Add the peeled tomatoes, breaking them up as you go, season with salt, and cook over low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want a fairly thick, rustic sauce, so press the tomato pieces down as it cooks.
- Prepare the tenerumi: Select the leaves that are healthy, green, soft and velvety to the touch. Wash them, then cut them into strips. Cook the tenerumi in lightly salted water for about 10 minutes. This is the same water you will use to cook the pasta, so use a large pot.
- Cook the pasta: Break the spaghetti into roughly 3cm pieces, allowing about 50–60g per person. Once the tenerumi are cooked, add the spaghetti directly to the pot and cook everything together until the pasta is done.
- Bring it all together Stir in the picchi pacchi sauce and mix well. Serve hot or warm. Add an extra spoonful of sauce and a generous grating of ricotta salata at the table, as much as you like.
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