Scialatielli pasta with yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes and walnuts

Scialatielli pasta with yellow peppers, tomatoes and walnuts. 

This scialatielli pasta with yellow peppers is not only easy to make but also healthy, colourful and tasty. The recipe comes from the cooking blog section of Salerno Today, a daily online newspaper about Salerno, the capital city of Salerno province where Amalfi is located.(go straight to recipe)

Scialatielli are a typical fresh pasta from Campania, especially the Amalfi coast. As I wrote in my post about scialatielli, they were originally invented by a chef called Enrico Cosentino, who, during the 1960s and 70s, experimented with different kinds of pasta. Cosentino created scialatielli by making a pasta dough with flour, milk in place of eggs and with the addition of basil leaves, extra virgin olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Today this pasta is recognized as a PAT food in Campania meaning a Traditional Agri-food Product.

When handmade; flour, water and / or milk, grated parmesan cheese, oil, chilled fresh basil and salt are used to make the dough. However, it is also possible to find dried scialatielli as they are now produced by commercial pasta makers. The dried version isn’t made with milk, basil and cheese but is similar in shape, length and thickness to the handmade version. Scialatielli look like short thick tagliatelle. (see my post about scialatielli if you’d like to try making this pasta at home). 

I have been wanting to make this pasta by hand myself, but haven’t been able to do it yet. So, I decided to use the dried version for this recipe. Admittedly, homemade scialatielli taste different because of the addition of basil, milk and cheese. However, maybe because of the quality of the pasta maker, an artisan pasta producer in Campania called Pastificio Venturino, my dried scialatielli were pretty delicious. 

The recipe itself comes from the recipe section of Salerno Today, a daily online newspaper about Salerno, the capital city of Salerno province where Amalfi is located. Although not a typical recipe, this scialatielli pasta with yellow peppers has a number of features which really piqued my interest. The pasta dressing has 3 different parts, a yellow pepper cream, roasted or fried tomatoes and a breadcrumb, walnut and sesame seed mix sprinkled on top. It’s also completely dairy free, if you use dried pasta, which is unusual for vegetarian pasta recipes but great for those who need to avoid dairy or dislike cheese.

Despite the 3 different parts to the dressing, this scialatielli pasta with yellow peppers recipe is easy to make and is also healthy, colourful and tasty. Give it a try. I’m sure you will love it.