08/07/2026
🍝 Pasta on the Road – Episode 3
This time, Sardinia.
One of the most special moments of the trip wasn’t just cooking for Andrea’s family every lunchtime—it was learning how to make homemade fregola from his aunt. So decided to make it a lunch dish for everyone with whatever seafood they brought me back at home.
Serves 4–6
Ingredients:
* 500g homemade fregola (or good-quality dried fregola)
* 500g mussels, cleaned
* 400g prawns, peeled (reserve a few whole for garnish)
* 500g lupini clams (baby clams), cleaned
* 200gr cherry tomatoes sauce
* 3 garlic cloves (I used for the whole process)
* 150ml dry rosé w**e
* 100ml extra virgin olive oil
* Fresh parsley
* Salt and chilli 🌶️ (but I could not used it because of a 5 years old baby)
Method:
1. Cook the mussels, prawns and lupini clams separately with a little extra virgin olive oil, garlic and a splash of rosé w**e.
2. In a large pan (or two in my case), gently cook the garlic, olive oil and the cherry tomatoes sauce for about 10mins.
3. Add the reserved seafood juices, then stir in the homemade fregola.
4. Cook it like a risotto, adding hot water (or fish golden juice) a little at a time while stirring, for about 5-7 minutes, until the fregola is tender but still has a slight bite.
5. During the last 30 seconds, fold in the unshelled seafood. Finish with the reserved whole shellfish for decoration, fresh parsley and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Have you ever tried fregola before? Let me know in the comments below 👇🏼
