The whole of Italy is in this dish, with a simple recipe that puts together flavours and shapes from the Alps to Sicily. And please acknowledge that on purpose I left out my home land – Romagna – to avoid accusations of being 'campanilistic'. However, if you wish, you could replace orecchiette with the mythical strozzapreti!

What you need (for two people):

200 gr. orecchiette (Puglia)
100 gr. pesto sauce (Liguria) *
70-80 gr. speck (Trentino Alto Adige)
10-15 sun-dried tomatoes (Sicily)
2 fresh ripe tomatoes (Campania, obviously!)
1 clove of garlic
¼ onion
olive oil (Umbria)
grated pecorino stagionato (Tuscany)

How you do it:

Lightly fry the onion and garlic finely chopped with the diced speck in olive oil. When the ingredients are well browned, add the sun-dried tomatoes (if these were still in their dried form, you need to soak them for 20 minutes or so in water to soften them) and keep stirring for 5 minutes. In the meantime, cook the orecchiette in lightly salted boiling water. When the pasta is nearly ready, add the fresh tomatoes and the pesto mix to the sauce.
Rinse the pasta and mix it well with the sauce, adding freshly grated pecorino.

* Quick recipe for pesto: Put in a mortar a good handful of fresh basil leaves, a spoon of pine kernels, a clove of garlic, salt, black pepper and olive oil. Work the mixture out with all your strength and energy until you obtain a creamy and velvety sauce.