Pasta con i Peperoni Cruschi⁣

The town of Matera, located in the Basilicata region of Italy, is the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the country uninterrupted since Palaeolithic times. One of the famed ingredients from this area is the Peperone di Senise, a thin, intense but sweet pepper with a paper thin skin, they are strung together on strings and hung in the open air to dry in the sun resulting in a wispy featherweight and ultra crisp texture.⁣

I had some difficulty sourcing Peperone di Senise as none of the Italian shops in my town have them. Fortunately, I was able to locate them on Amazon. They may look like ordinary hot chili peppers but these peppers are not spicy at all. Instead, they offer a remarkable combination of intense earthiness, fruity notes, and a subtle smokiness.⁣

In Matera these peppers are used to make their signature Pasta con i Peperoni Cruschi. The dried peppers are toasted in a hot pan with olive oil until they become deliriously crispy and then crunched to bits and mixed with pasta flavored with garlic and anchovy and finished off with course breadcrumbs fried in olive oil. ⁣