Pasta Salad – how boring!

Insalata Fregola sounds so much more exciting – you'd be curious wouldn't you? Ever heard of Fregola? It looks like my most unfavourite foodstuff – couscous. In fact Fregola is a pasta from Sardinia – a semolina dough formed into tiny balls.

This is what it looks like :

What follows is a warm pasta salad :

Fregola Salad

Serves 6

750ml stock – vegetable or chicken

250g Fregola pasta

1 tbsp olive oil

1 shallot, finely sliced

125g chorizo, finely diced

1 Romano pepper – colour of your

choice, finely sliced

120g fine beans, topped and tailed

and cut into 3cm pieces

Little Gem lettuce – separate into

12 “cups”

Add chilled water to a medium bowl and add an ice cube or six. Fill a medium sized saucepan half full of salted water and bring to the boil. When the water boils add the beans and leave for a minute. Drain the beans and plunge straight into the iced water. When they've cooled drain them and wrap them in kitchen roll. Set aside until required. This is known as “blanch and refresh”.

Bring the stock to the boil, add the Fregola – bring back to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain and toss with the olive oil. Set the Fregola aside on a tray. This element can be made ahead.

Fry the chorizo so that it releases its oil, just as it begins to crisp add the shallot and fry for 2 mins then add the pepper and fry for another 2 minutes. Add the Fregola and then the drained beans and stir gently to mix for 3 minutes.

Serve in the Little Gem “cups” and garnish with a drizzle of Balsamic Glaze.

By blanching and refreshing your veggies you're saving yourself time and pressure. Apart from the cooking method mentioned above i.e. adding the beans to your Fregola Salad you can drop them back into boiling water for a minute or melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and flash fry them for a minute or two to heat.

The added benefits with blanching are that it can be done ahead and your veggies don't finish up overcooked and looking decidedly grey when family/friends/guests are delayed.

If you've a large microwave - big enough to take a platter you can have blanched all your veggies and arrange them on a plate – brush them with melted butter and cover with microwaveable cling film and set aside – microwave for a couple of minutes when you want to serve.

I know that my dislike of couscous comes from compulsory eating of pudding at school – in my defence I have tried to like it. What has couscous got to do with school puddings – every time I see it I actually see sago and tapioca – not that either was ever called by its correct name ….