Orders placed during the holidays will be shipped from 01/09/2026
Orders placed during the holidays will be shipped from 01/09/2026
In Palermo, they are called “vurranie” in dialect and are traditionally served with potatoes in a soup with broken pasta. I’m talking about borage, tragically and often confused with the poisonous mandrake but which, if skilfully harvested, gives an “ancient” flavour to pasta dishes.
In this recipe we have chosen a typical Trapani pasta format, the Busiata, created by running a branch of a Mediterranean maquis plant, the Ampelodesma (in dialect “ddisa”) over small cylinders of very firm dough made from water and durum wheat semolina.
In this case, the dough is wholemeal and made from an ancient Sicilian wheat, Russello. Ghisanativa allows good creaming of pasta, so I did not opt for a soup and instead chose a potato stew with saffron in which to cream the pasta and then finish with a cream of borage. In spring, borage gives us a wonderful blue flower which adds colour and flavour to the dish.
Start by boiling the water in a small saucepan with the saffron. Peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes.
Slice the spring onion and fry it in Ghisanativa with three spoons of extra virgin olive oil, add the diced potatoes and fry them for a couple of minutes. Add the water with saffron, salt and cook until creamy (you may need to add more water, but the important thing is to reach the consistency of soft cream with a few pieces of potato). Add a little pepper.
In the meantime, bring a saucepan of water to the boil and wash the borage. When the water boils, add salt and put the vegetables in for 2 minutes. Prepare a bowl of water and ice and quickly immerse the blanched vegetables in it for a few seconds.
Drain the vegetables and put them in a blender with three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a ladleful of the cooking water from the vegetables. Blend and set aside. When the potato stew and borage cream are ready, cook the Busiate in the borage cooking water for 3/4 minutes. Toss the pasta in the Ghisanativa and stir until cooked, gradually adding the water in which the pasta was cooked to make it creamy. Grate the peel of half a lemon, taking care to leave out the white part.
Serve the Busiate, with a spoon pour over the borage cream, decorate with the flowers and a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil.
“An environmental educator in Sicily and a cooperator in Tanzania for a long time, in 2017 I began to study agri-food supply chains and became passionate about the world of cooking. Later I studied at the Gambero Rosso cookery school and decided to open a restaurant in one of the city’s old markets, the Capo, in the historic centre of Palermo, Le Angelique, in 2019 with three other female colleagues and friends, of which I am the chef. I continue to roam the woods of the island to find inspiration and keep in touch with the Planet of which I have deep respect that I pour into a careful, tasty and zero-kilometre cuisine.”
