Spaghetti AGRETTI

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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Agretti „ Soda inermis “ or Barbe di Frate and in Germany called monk’s beard is a wild weed growing in sandy seashores along the Mediterranean coast, especially popular in Tuscany. They have a salty&lemony taste and can be blanched, steamed or even better cooked in a pasta sauce for 3min.

Now is the season and they are full of the energy of spring. This recipe is fast and easy to make, don’t miss it. One of my favorite pasta dishes.

Ingredients

300g Spaghetti
1-2 bunches Agretti/monk’s beard/Barbe di Frate
3 anchovies
1-2 tbsp salty capers
2 cloves garlic
250g Datterini tomatoes
olive oil
chilli flakes/peperoncino (optional)

Preparation

First soak the salty capers in cold water for 1-2h. Chop the garlic in slices, chop the tomatoes in chunks. Discard the pinkish roots and tough bottoms from the monk’s beard. You only need the green part. Wash the monk’s beard carefully. Also cook the pasta.

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Heat a lot of olive oil in a big sauteuse, pan or wok on low heat. Add anchovies, drained capers, garlic slices and cook for 2-3min.

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Now add the tomatoes and cook for 2-3min

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Add the Agretti

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Combine it cook for 2-3min

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Now add the cooked pasta and combine. Cook for additional 1-2min. You could also add a bit pasta cooking water, as usual

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Serve, but please NO cheese. Such refreshing&light, salty and sublime, like an ocean breeze.

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P.S. spring arrived at our cottage near Berlin

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Nice one, Martin. Thanks for sharing. Not sure it’s an ingredient I can get in NY metro but will look.
Cheers

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I’ve made similar pasta dishes in the past. I’ve grown my own agretti for the past six years or so. The seed is allegedly difficult to germinate (or has short viability) but when I grew my first batch I had no problem, and in spite of the plant’s reputation in my experience it is very happy to reseed itself all over the place! My agretti is not yet up, but no doubt I will see sprouts very soon.
Another delicious green very much worth growing (and very easy to grow) is Silene inflata, called stridolo in Italy and sculpit in English. Again, this is another plant very happy to self seed. My sculpit volunteers are up and I will probably harvest some in the next couple of days. A bonus–sculpit flowers are adorable pale pink balloons, and beloved by pollinators.
My original seed for both the agretti and sculpit I acquired in Italy. The excellent seed company Franchi sells both in generously sized packets, and these are also available in the US through growitalian.com. Both can be grown in containers–in fact I am glad mine are in containers as they volunteer so freely!

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BTW, the flavour and growing behaviour of sculpit given in growitalian.com is nothing like it is in my own experience, which is pretty much exactly as described here. My plants are at least short-lived hardy perennials (I am in USDA zone 7 and had sculpit greens all winter) and do taste like pea greens.

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In case anyone is interested, Johnny’s has seed for a related saltwort, Salsola komarovii, called Okahijiki in Japan. I’ve ordered some for comparison with the agretti (Salsola soda) that I already have.

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