If orecchiette con le cime di rapa is Puglia’s weekday anthem, Strascinati al sugo di braciole is its Sunday prayer.
It’s the smell that fills the narrow streets of Foggia and Lucera at noon — onions melting into oil, tomatoes thickening in slow rhythm, the air heavy with promise.
It’s the sound of plates clinking, of families gathering long before the pasta is ready, of time slowing into flavour.

Every region in Italy has its ritual of rest, but in Puglia, Sunday belongs to sugo di braciole — a sauce so rich and slow it feels like the day itself is cooking.
And the pasta that carries it best is the humble, hand-touched Strascinati — small, curved hollows of semolina that seem designed to hold a story.

The Shape That Holds the Sauce

To make Strascinati is to understand patience.
You cut small pieces of dough made from semolina and water, then press and drag them gently under your fingers against a wooden board.
The motion carves a slight groove, creating a shell-like hollow — rough enough to grip sauce, tender enough to stay light.

Each one bears the imprint of its maker, the faint trace of a fingertip.
In kitchens across the Tavoliere plain, mothers and daughters would shape them by the hundreds, leaving them to dry on linen cloths under the courtyard sun.
They were the pasta of the wheat country — simple, durable, and utterly honest.

Braciole: The Rolls of Memory

The word braciola is deceptive. In the north, it means a chop.
In Puglia, it means something else entirely — a thin slice of beef rolled around parsley, garlic, and pecorino, tied with cotton string, and simmered for hours in tomato sauce until it yields to the touch of a fork.

Each roll is a tiny monument to patience.
As they cook, the meat enriches the sauce, and the sauce, in turn, softens the meat.
What begins as two separate elements becomes one — dense, fragrant, layered — a sauce that is both hearty and poetic.

And when it meets cicatelli, every hollow fills with that depth.
It’s the perfect partnership of texture and soul: the curve holding the sauce, the wheat grounding the warmth.

The Sunday Ceremony

Sunday in northern Puglia follows a rhythm older than clocks.
The morning begins with the slow hiss of oil in a pan, the hum of a radio, the low conversation of neighbours calling across balconies.
By mid-morning, the scent of sugo drifts through the streets — each pot a private signature.
Some sauces are sharper with wine, others sweeter with onion or cloves. Each family has its own way, its own memory of “how Nonna did it.”

Lunch begins late, after church or market, and unfolds in two acts.
First, the Strascinati — al dente, glossy with sauce, eaten with generous appetite.
Then, the braciole themselves, served as a second course with bread, olives, and a few jokes about who’s eaten the most.
It’s not just a meal; it’s a weekly declaration that life, however busy, still bends to the table.

The Olive Oil Thread

In Puglia, olive oil is more than seasoning — it’s a form of continuity.
The sauce begins with it, the pasta ends with it, and the cook’s hands glisten with it from start to finish.
The bold, peppery Coratina variety is favoured in the north; its intensity balances the sweetness of the tomato and the richness of the meat.
A drizzle of raw oil at the end doesn’t just enhance flavour — it seals the memory.

Here, oil is never measured. It’s poured by instinct, the same way grandmothers add salt by feel or wine by intuition.
Every family believes their oil is the best, and in a way, they’re all right.

Traditional Recipe: Strascinati al Sugo di Braciole

Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 2½ hours

Ingredients

For the Braciole

• 8 thin slices of beef (about 100 g each)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 30 g grated pecorino cheese
• A handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Salt and black pepper
• Kitchen string for tying

For the Sauce

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 800 ml tomato passata
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 100 ml red wine
• 80 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 4 black olives (preferably Bella di Cerignola), chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste

For the Pasta

• 400 g Strascinati (fresh or dried, preferably bronze-cut) or orecchiette

Method

1. Prepare the Braciole
   Lay out the beef slices. Sprinkle each with garlic, parsley, pecorino, salt, and pepper.
   Roll tightly and tie with string to hold their shape.
2. Sear the Meat
   Heat olive oil in a large pot. Brown the rolls on all sides until golden. Remove and set aside.
3. Build the Sauce
   In the same pot, sauté the onion until soft and translucent.
   Stir in tomato paste, then deglaze with red wine. Let it simmer for a minute before adding the passata, bay leaf, and a little salt.
   Return the braciole to the pot, cover, and cook gently for about two hours, stirring occasionally.
   The sauce should thicken, darken, and perfume the entire kitchen.
4. Cook the Pasta
   When the sauce is nearly ready, boil the cicatelli in salted water until al dente.
5. Combine and Serve
   Toss the pasta in the sauce until every hollow gleams red.
   Serve the braciole separately with bread to soak up the remaining juices.
   Finish the pasta with a drizzle of raw olive oil — the final, essential note.

Plant-Based Version: Cicatelli al Sugo di Olive e Pomodoro

When meat is replaced with olives, capers, and slow-cooked tomatoes, the result is a sauce just as rich and deeply Pugliese — without losing its soul.

Ingredients

• 400 g Strascinati or orecchiette
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 700 ml tomato passata
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 100 ml red wine (optional)
• 100 g mixed olives, pitted and halved
• 1 tablespoon capers, rinsed
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
• Salt, pepper, and a pinch of chili flakes

Method
Gently sauté onion and garlic in olive oil until soft.
Add tomato paste and, if using, deglaze with red wine.
Add passata, olives, capers, oregano, salt and pepper. Simmer for 25–30 minutes.
Cook the cicatelli until al dente, then toss in the sauce.
Finish with a drizzle of raw olive oil and, for texture, a scattering of toasted almonds.

It is sunshine in a bowl — proof that Puglia’s soul doesn’t depend on meat, but on time, love, and oil.

The Spirit of Sunday

This dish isn’t about technique; it’s about tempo.
You can’t rush sugo di braciole. The onions must sigh, the tomatoes must darken, the oil must weave its quiet thread through it all.
You cook it the way you tell a long story — slowly, honestly, with room to breathe.

In Foggia, they say the best way to know when the sauce is ready is by the sound.
At first, it simmers loudly, impatiently.
Then, after a couple of hours, it goes quiet — a lazy bubble now and then.
That’s when you know it’s done. The sauce has settled into itself. So has the day.

Fun Facts

• Braciole are always tied with cotton string and never cut before serving, or you’ll “release the luck.”
• Horse meat was once traditional, believed to give strength and vitality.
• In the past, the sauce was cooked overnight on the embers of a fireplace, ready for Sunday lunch.
• Children often eat their Strascinati with sauce first, then use bread to scoop a piece of meat — their version of dessert.
• Some families add a few whole olives to the sauce at the end, a gesture both practical and symbolic: the olive is, after all, Puglia’s soul.

A Taste That Anchors Time

Strascinati al sugo di braciole isn’t just a recipe; it’s a rhythm.
It marks Sunday, it marks family, it marks the luxury of slowing down.
The sauce doesn’t belong to one family but to a region that still measures its weeks by the meals that end them.

Every Strascinati, every drop of oil, every slow-simmered tomato tells the same story:
that love in Puglia is served slowly, eaten together, and remembered forever.