Italian Sagne a Pèzze with Cicerchie | Sagne a Pèzze e Cicerchie Abruzzesi
Sagne a pèzze are hand cut rags of semola pasta, rolled thin on a board and divided into rough lozenges with a knife. There is no mould, no machine and no egg. Paired with cicerchie, the angular grass pea of the Abruzzese uplands, they make a piatto unico that has fed the interior of the region for as long as anyone there can remember.
The dish is a study in two firm things. Cicerchie never collapse the way a borlotto does, and semola pasta cut by hand keeps a bite that rolled sheets of egg dough lose. Everything in the method is about keeping both of those bites intact while still building a broth thick enough to hold them together.
It costs almost nothing, it wants a day of planning for the soak, and it is finished in twenty minutes once the pulses are cooked. Serve it in a warm bowl with raw olive oil over the top and it is one of the best things Abruzzo does.
Yield: 4 generous servings. Soak: 24 hours. Prep: 45 minutes. Cook: 2 hours. Total: about 27 hours including the soak. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo, or piatto unico. Region: Abruzzo, province of L'Aquila.
The Story
The name is dialect and it is literal. A pèzza is a rag or a patch, the piece of cloth kept for mending, and the pasta is cut the way cloth is cut: laid flat, sized by eye, divided with whatever edge is at hand. Elsewhere in Abruzzo the same dough is cut into narrow strips and simply called sagne. Cutting it into wide irregular pieces is the upland version, and the shape is not decorative: a broad rag holds more of a thick legume broth than a strip does, and a hand cut edge, thicker in the middle than at the corners, gives two textures in one mouthful.
The cicerchia belongs to the stony interior. In the province of L'Aquila it was sown on the high fields around the Navelli plateau and the villages of the Tirino valley, ground that is better known now for saffron and was then simply the worst land a family had. In a transhumant economy where the flocks left for Puglia in autumn and the household lived on what was in the sack, a pulse that yielded on bad ground and stored for years was worth more than a better tasting one.
Its clearest survival is Le Virtù, the dish Teramano cooks make on the first of May, in which every dried legume left in the house at the end of winter goes into one pot with seven kinds of pasta and the first vegetables of spring. Cicerchie are in that pot by definition, because Le Virtù exists to empty the store before the new season. This plate is the same instinct on an ordinary evening.
Ingredients
For the cicerchie
Dried cicerchie, grass peas, 1 1/2 cups (300 g)
Water for soaking, 8 cups (2 litres), changed twice
Water for cooking, 8 cups (2 litres)
Bay leaves, 2
Garlic clove, whole and unpeeled, 1
Celery stalk, halved, 1
For the sagne a pèzze
Durum wheat semola rimacinata, 2 cups (300 g)
Warm water, about 3/4 cup (170 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Semola for dusting the board, 2 tbsp (20 g)
For the base
Extra virgin olive oil, 4 tbsp (60 ml)
Garlic cloves, thinly sliced, 3
Fresh rosemary sprig, 1
Dried red chilli, peperoncino, 1, or to taste
Canned peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, 3/4 cup (180 g)
Fine sea salt, to taste
For finishing
Extra virgin olive oil, raw, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 1 tbsp
Pecorino Abruzzese, grated, 2 tbsp (15 g), optional
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Sort and soak the cicerchie
Tip the grass peas onto a tray and go through them by hand. They are grown on rough ground and a small stone is normal, so this is not a formality. Rinse them, cover them with the soaking water by at least three inches (8 cm) and leave them for a full 24 hours at cool room temperature. Change the water twice and throw every change away. Cicerchie are harder than chickpeas and a short soak leaves them chalky in the centre however long they later simmer.
Cook them slowly and keep the broth
Drain, rinse and put the cicerchie in a pot with the fresh water, the bay, the unpeeled garlic and the celery. Bring to a bare simmer and hold it there for 90 minutes to 2 hours, skimming the first foam. Add no salt: salt firms the seed coat and a pulse salted early can simmer for hours without going tender. They are ready when a grass pea crushes between the fingers but holds its shape. Keep all the cooking liquid, which is the broth of the finished dish.
Mix and knead the semola dough
Heap the semola on a board, make a well and add the salt and most of the warm water. Bring it together with your fingertips and add the rest only if the dough refuses to gather. Semola drinks less than soft wheat flour and the dough should feel stiff and slightly rough, never sticky. Knead for a solid 10 minutes until the surface goes smooth, then cover and rest it for 30 minutes so the gluten relaxes and the sheet rolls out without springing back.
Roll and cut the pèzze
Cut the dough in two and work one piece at a time, keeping the other covered. Roll each piece on a dusted board to about 1/16 inch (2 mm), thin enough to see the grain of the wood through it but no thinner. With a knife or a pastry wheel, cut the sheet into rough lozenges of about 2 inches (5 cm). They are meant to be irregular. Toss them with semola and spread them on a floured cloth in a single uncovered layer.
Build the garlic, rosemary and chilli base
Warm the olive oil in a wide heavy pan over low heat with the sliced garlic, the rosemary and the whole chilli. Keep the heat low enough that the garlic never takes colour, about 4 minutes, until the oil smells of all three. Browned garlic turns bitter and there is nothing else on the plate to hide behind. Lift out the rosemary, add the crushed tomatoes and cook for 6 minutes until the raw edge is gone.
Bring the cicerchie into the pan and crush a portion
Add the drained cicerchie to the pan with about 2 cups (475 ml) of their broth and simmer for 10 minutes so the pulses take on the garlic and chilli. Now crush roughly a quarter of them against the side of the pan. That quarter is what thickens the liquid into something that coats the pasta. Crush more and the dish turns into a purée that swallows the rags; crush none and the broth slides off them. Season with salt for the first time here.
Boil the sagne and control the water
Bring a wide pot of water to a rolling boil and salt it lightly, about 1 tablespoon (15 g) for 4 quarts (4 litres). It goes in lighter than for dried pasta because the cicerchie broth is already seasoned. Drop the pèzze in, stir once, and cook for 3 minutes only, two thirds of the way to done. Lift them out with a spider rather than draining, and keep a cup of the pasta water.
Finish the pasta in the pot
Slide the sagne into the cicerchie with a ladle of pasta water and cook together over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, moving the pan rather than stirring hard so the rags do not tear. The pasta releases its last starch in the legume broth instead of down the drain, and the liquid tightens around it. Take the pan off the heat while there is still visible broth, add the raw olive oil and swirl to emulsify. Rest 2 minutes.
Plating
This goes into warm bowls, never flat plates, because it keeps moving as it sits and a rim is what holds it. Ladle from the bottom of the pan so each bowl gets whole cicerchie as well as pasta, and let it settle rather than arranging anything.
Finish each bowl with a thread of raw olive oil, a pinch of parsley and a turn of black pepper. Grated pecorino divides households in Abruzzo: it adds salt and sharpness but mutes the nuttiness of the grass pea, so offer it at the table rather than deciding for everyone.
Professional Technique
The defining ingredient behaves unlike any other pulse in the Italian pantry, and the method follows from that. A cicerchia has a thick, irregular seed coat and a dense starchy interior, which is why it stores for years and why it refuses to break down into the mush a cannellino gives after an hour. Handled properly it stays whole and faintly firm to the tooth even after 2 hours, and that resistance is the point of the dish.
Salt and acid timing is the second control. Sodium ions and acidity both reinforce the pectin and the proteins in a legume skin, so a pot salted or tomatoed at the start gives pulses that stay chalky however long they cook. Salt goes in only once the cicerchie are tender, and the tomato meets them in the pan, not the pot. The changes of soaking water matter for the same practical reason: they carry away what makes a grass pea heavy.
The third is the split cooking of the pasta, neither a full separate boil nor cooking it straight in the pot. Fresh semola pasta carries a lot of loose flour, and dropping it raw into the legumes turns the broth pasty. Three minutes in salted water washes that flour off and sets the shape; the last two minutes in the cicerchie let it release its remaining starch exactly where the viscosity is wanted, around itself.
Texture and Moisture Control
Two firm textures and one thickened liquid have to arrive together. The rags al dente with a slightly thicker centre, the grass peas tender but intact, the broth thick enough to cling and loose enough to move when the bowl is tilted. Judge the liquid while there is still time to act: the pan should look slightly too wet when it leaves the heat, because the pasta keeps drinking for another two minutes.
Starch is the only thickener here and it comes from three places. The crushed quarter of the cicerchie gives body, the cloudy broth gives background viscosity, and the pasta gives the final gloss in those last minutes. Keep the reserved pasta water and the remaining broth warm beside the stove and loosen with either. Cold liquid at the end drops the temperature and breaks the emulsion the raw oil has just made.
Professional Mise en Place
The long part of this dish happens a day ahead and the service part is short. Cicerchie cooked and held in their broth, pasta cut and drying on a cloth, base ready in the pan: after that it is five minutes.
Equipment and tools
Wooden board and a long rolling pin, or a pasta machine set wide
Sharp knife or a fluted pastry wheel for the pèzze
Heavy pot for the pulses and a wide sauté pan for the finish
Spider or slotted skimmer, never a colander, for lifting the sagne
Floured cloth or a lined tray for holding the cut pasta
Prepared ahead
Cicerchie soaked 24 hours with the water changed twice, the day before
Cicerchie cooked and cooled in their own broth, up to 3 days ahead
Pasta dough mixed and rested, up to 4 hours ahead under a cloth
Pèzze cut and spread in one layer, up to 2 hours ahead
Garlic sliced, chilli and rosemary to hand, tomatoes crushed
Service setup
Pasta water at a rolling boil and lightly salted, measured not guessed
Legume broth and reserved pasta water kept warm, never cold
Base finished and waiting over the lowest heat
Bowls warming, raw olive oil and parsley at the pass
Pecorino grated and offered separately, not added in the pan
Chef Tips
Buy cicerchie from a producer with turnover and check the harvest year. A grass pea three or four years old softens eventually, but it takes an extra hour and the skins toughen in a way simmering does not fix. If your batch is still chalky at 2 hours, keep going rather than raising the heat.
Roll the sheet by hand if you can. A machine gives a uniform thickness, which is what this pasta is not supposed to have, and the thicker centre of a hand rolled rag is where the bite lives. If you use a machine, stop two notches earlier than for tagliatelle.
Never cover the cut pèzze while they wait. Semola pasta in a single uncovered layer dries just enough to hold its shape in the pot, while pasta stacked under a towel sweats and welds into one block.
Taste the broth before the pasta goes in, then again after. The sagne absorb a surprising amount of salt in those last 2 minutes, and a broth seasoned to perfection beforehand reads flat in the bowl. Leave it a shade stronger than you think you want.
Common Mistakes
Soaking the cicerchie for only a few hours. The seed coat is thicker than a chickpea skin and the centre denser. Under a full 24 hours the grass peas stay chalky through 2 hours of simmering.
Salting the cooking water. Salt and acid firm the skins, so a pot salted at the start simmers forever without going tender. Season once the cicerchie are soft and add tomato in the pan.
Throwing away the legume broth. That cloudy liquid is the sauce. Drain over a bowl and keep it all, because water added later carries neither the body nor the flavour.
Rolling the pasta too thin. At tagliolini thickness the rags tear against the pulses and disappear into the broth. Stop at about 1/16 inch (2 mm) and let the edges stay uneven.
Cooking the sagne fully before it meets the pulses. Pasta taken all the way in water and then given two minutes in the pan loses the bite that holds up against the grass peas. Three minutes in water, two in the pan.
Letting the pan go dry. The pasta keeps absorbing liquid after the heat is off. Take it off while it looks slightly too wet, or what reaches the table is a solid mass.
Wine Pairing
Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC: The regional answer and the best one. A deeply coloured rosato made from Montepulciano grapes, it has the red fruit and light tannic grip of a red with the acidity and serving temperature of a white, which is what a dish of pulses and chilli wants. It refreshes without erasing the nuttiness of the grass pea.
Offida Pecorino DOCG: From the Marche hills over the border, with more shoulders than most Italian whites. Its high acidity and faintly saline, herbal character cut the raw oil poured over at the end, while its weight stands up to a bowl this substantial. Serve it around 54°F (12°C).
Conero DOCG: Montepulciano again, grown on the limestone slopes above Ancona, with dark plum fruit, soft tannin and a savoury finish. Enough structure to meet a piatto unico and enough freshness not to sit heavily. Choose a younger bottling, not a long aged Riserva.
Biferno DOC Rosso: The Molise neighbour, built mostly on Montepulciano with Aglianico behind it, from the same food culture of pulses and hand cut pasta. Its dried herb and sour cherry notes sit beside the rosemary and chilli, and the tannin is gentle enough not to clash with the legume starch.
Verdicchio di Matelica DOC: The inland Verdicchio, grown in a cool valley away from the sea, tighter and more mineral than its coastal cousin. The green almond bitterness on its finish runs alongside the grass pea rather than against it, and the acidity resets the palate between spoonfuls.
Storage & Reheating
Cooked cicerchie keep beautifully. Refrigerate them submerged in their broth in a sealed container for up to 4 days, or freeze them in the broth for up to 3 months. The cut pèzze keep uncovered on a floured tray in the refrigerator for a day, or freeze on the tray and bag once solid for up to 2 months, then cook from frozen with an extra minute.
The assembled dish keeps refrigerated for 2 days but thickens into a solid mass, which is normal. Reheat it in a wide pan over low heat with a ladle of warm water or broth, moving the pan rather than stirring, until it loosens and steams. Never use a microwave, which turns the rags gummy at the edges while the centre stays cold.
Do not freeze the finished dish. Cooked semola pasta that has absorbed broth turns mealy on thawing and no amount of liquid brings it back. Freeze the two components separately and put them together on the day.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 generous portions:
Calories: 610 kcal
Total Fat: 20 g
Saturated Fat: 3 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 17 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 520 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 88 g
Fiber: 14 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 24 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, folate, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, manganese
These figures are estimates and assume the optional pecorino is left out. Most of the salt in the pasta water is discarded with it, so the real sodium depends on how the broth is seasoned.
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