Recipe: Strascinati con Peperoni Cruschi e Mollica di Pane

The Soul of Basilicata in a Single Bite

Introduction / Story

In Basilicata, food doesn’t try to impress — it simply belongs.
Strascinati con Peperoni Cruschi e Mollica di Pane is that kind of dish: it doesn’t perform, it remembers.
It remembers the sun over Senise, the sound of olive oil crackling in a shallow pan, the smell of toasted bread in quiet kitchens.
It’s the flavor of a land that has turned simplicity into poetry.

Picture the scene: peppers strung like red necklaces drying under the August heat, loaves of bread baked once a week in stone ovens, olive oil kept cool in green bottles stored in cellars.
Every ingredient tells a story of care and survival. When they meet — bread, pepper, oil, and handmade pasta — the result is a hymn to Lucanian earthiness: sweet, crisp, golden, and alive.

History & Cultural Context

This dish was born from necessity, shaped by patience.
When meat was scarce and cheese too precious, Basilicata’s farmers made flavor from what they had: wheat, peppers, olive oil, and stale bread.

The Peperone di Senise IGP, first cultivated in the 1500s, thrived in the dry air of the Vulture–Melfese hills.
Families strung them to dry in long chains — collane di peperoni — until their skins turned papery and deep red.
During winter, the peppers were fried for just a few seconds in hot oil, puffing and crisping instantly: peperoni cruschi — fragile, sweet, smoky jewels.

Bread, baked weekly in communal ovens, was never wasted. The hardened ends became mollica di pane, grated and toasted into golden crumbs — Lucania’s own version of Parmesan.
Together, cruschi and mollica turned humble staples into one of Italy’s most poetic examples of cucina povera: poor cooking made extraordinary.

The Pasta Shape

The pasta used here, strascinati, embodies Lucania’s landscape — rugged, generous, and handmade.
Their name comes from strascinare, “to drag,” describing how they’re shaped: a small piece of dough pressed under three fingers and pulled across a wooden board, leaving an oval hollow with one smooth side and one rough, curled edge.

That dragging creates texture — a surface made for holding oil, crumbs, and tiny shards of pepper.
The best strascinati are never perfect; they are alive with fingerprints and curves, evidence of touch.

Artisan producers across Basilicata still make them by hand, drying them slowly in the mountain air.
Their unevenness is their charm — each one a little edible landscape, each hollow a small basin for flavor.

The Sauce / Key Ingredients

There’s no creamy sauce here — just the essence of a region:
olive oil, mollica di pane, and peperoni cruschi.

The oil carries the scent of garlic.
The breadcrumbs bring warmth and crunch.
The peppers offer surprise — a delicate crackle that melts into sweetness.

Each element is cooked separately and reunited at the end:

• the peppers fried for seconds, just until they puff,
• the breadcrumbs toasted until golden,
• and everything tossed together just before serving.

The result is texture, fragrance, and sunlight in every bite.

Traditional Recipe

Ingredients

• 400 g strascinati (fresh handmade or artisan dried)
• 100 ml Lucanian extra virgin olive oil
• 4–5 dried Peperoni di Senise IGP
• 100 g coarse breadcrumbs (Pane di Matera if possible)
• 1 clove garlic
• Optional: 1 anchovy fillet (avoid if you are plant based)
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Optional: grated Pecorino di Filiano DOP

Method

1. Heat half the olive oil in a wide pan. When shimmering, fry the dried peppers one at a time for about 2–3 seconds — they’ll puff instantly. Remove at once and drain on paper towels.
2. In the same oil, add the garlic and anchovy (if using). Sauté gently, then add the breadcrumbs and toast until golden. Remove the garlic.
3. Cook the strascinati in salted boiling water until al dente.
4. Transfer the pasta to the pan with the breadcrumbs, adding a splash of cooking water. Toss well.
5. Serve on warm plates and crumble the fried peppers over the top. Finish with a drizzle of raw olive oil and, if desired, a fine dusting of Pecorino di Filiano.

The goal is balance: silky pasta, crunchy crumbs, and that fleeting sweetness from the peppers — a texture that tells a story.

Fun Facts & Curiosities

• The Pop Test: In Senise, cooks listen for the “pop” — that tiny sound means the pepper is perfectly fried.
• Pane di Matera: The breadcrumbs often come from this celebrated bread, baked in stone ovens and naturally leavened.
• Poor Man’s Cheese: Mollica di pane once replaced Parmesan entirely — proof that thrift breeds flavor.
• Pocket Snack: Shepherds carried cruschi in their pockets as a crunchy, sweet energy boost.
• Protected Treasure: The Peperone di Senise has IGP status and even its own local museum.
• Lucanian Saying: “Pane, olio e crusco — e il mondo è giusto.”
  (Bread, oil, and a pepper — and the world feels right.)

Closing Note

Strascinati con Peperoni Cruschi e Mollica di Pane may have begun as a dish of need, but today it stands as a declaration of pride — a recipe that speaks softly yet carries centuries of memory.

In every hollow of pasta, in every brittle red flake, you taste Basilicata itself: resilient, radiant, and grounded in the land.

It is not food made to impress.
It is food made to remember.