A salad of ingredients from the farmers’ market, welcoming a new Summer.

“Strozzapreti” – the “priest strangler” is a hand-rolled pasta formed by rolling strips of thin dough through your palms, and then pinching off the rolled strip with the fingers of the hand not holding on to the dough.

The dough recipe is basic — the same as for strascinati, with the softness of the dough making it easier to shape. This will make enough for 6 to 8 people.

Strozzapreti

250 g all-purpose flour
250 g semolina
1 cup water
1 T olive oil

There are many anecdotes regarding the origin of the name, but it probably has to do with the ‘strangling’ of the dough between the hands, with such force that it appears you’re mad enough to strangle a priest. It could also have to do with gluttonous clergy eating so many, so fast, that they ended up choking. Who knows for sure? At the end of the day, this is a fun pasta to make. It’s got great texture, and holds some sauce in the nooks and crannies.

A crostini with some pheasant back mushroom sauce, some slivers of the mushrooms fried until a bit crispy, fiddleheads, asparagus and pecorino. Sea salt and olive oil added for good measure.

There have been some showers lately which probably helped with the forest being inundated by the pheasant backs. May is generally their month to shine in these parts. Not all of them were good eating, but there were some keepers. Here’s one growing straight up out of a log, instead of the usual shelf-like structure coming horizontally out of a tree stump.