We are not used to considering the wheat an ingredient for our everyday dishes. Once upon a time, however, it was not so and the wheat with sauce, a typical traditional dish Salento cuisine, proves it widely. It is, in fact, one of the recipes that are part of the ancient cuisine, the one that brought poor but nutritious food to the table.

Wheat with sauce – cranu stumpatu cu lu sucu in Salento dialect – it is a traditional recipe from Puglia, but also from neighboring Basilicata and uses one of the few accessible foods for the poor pockets of the peasants, wheat, accompanied by one simple tomato sauce enriched with basil and seasoned with grated pecorino.

The recipe for wheat with Salento sauce

Ingredients

To prepare the "cranu stampatu cu lu sucu" you will need: 500 g of wheat grains, 1 liter of rustic tomato sauce, 2 white onions, 150 gr of grated pecorino cheese, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt and chilli pepper (optional).

Preparation

The first thing to do to prepare this typical dish is soak the wheat in cold water about 12 hours, indispensable action to make it swell, soften and prepare it for cooking.

After the night "bath", the grain is ready for cooking, to be done for about an hour in a saucepan with salted water over moderate heat, stirring frequently. While the main ingredient of our recipe is cooking it is possible prepare a sauce Quick with tomato sauce and basil, to be prepared with a light onion sauté.

The makeup to prepare a more tasty wheat with sauce, make another onion sauce where whisk for about 10 minutes the cooked wheat before seasoning it with the sauce, making absorb completely the water. At this point, after putting the wheat on the plate, you can pour the sauce and sprinkle with pecorino cheese before serving.