Strascinati Pugliesi with Rabbit Sausage, Ramps, and White Beans

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May just might be one of the most exciting times for those of us who love to cook. Fresh asparagus is at it’s peak season. Mushroom hunters lose their minds and vanish into the woods in search of morels. And one of the most ephemeral spring vegetables of them all bursts out onto the scene for a few fleeting weeks before fading away to a garlic-scented memory. I am talking, of course, about ramps.

Those of you who have already experienced ramps are probably already nodding your head, knowing full well the near-mystical power these garlic relatives hold over those who fall under their spell. Those of you who haven’t are likely wondering what all this hullabaloo is about. Ramps, also known as wild leeks, have an exceptionally short season, lasting only about two or three weeks. Many of them are wild foraged, although some specialty farms have established patches of them large enough to harvest when their season comes up. On top of this, their shelf life is only two or three days after harvest, meaning ramps aren’t the sort of thing that make their way to your local supermarket. You need to know where and when to get them, and be ready to use them right away. But the flavor… more than worth it. Think garlic, but sweeter and without the acrid bite. Pungent, yet somehow mellow enough that you can eat them raw.

OK, I’ve waxed poetic for long enough. I should get on to the recipe already….

A few years ago, I was gifted some wild ramps by a coworker. As I typically do when I get a hold of something special, I brought them over to share with Chele and her husband, Chris. I had to come up with something to use them in on short notice, so I grabbed a couple of other items from my kitchen that I had been saving for a special occasion: a package of Strascinati Pugliesi pasta and some frozen rabbit sausages that I had ordered from Fossil Farms. Everything got tossed together on the fly (along with a can of beans and a little white wine), and the result turned out far beyond anything we could have expected. The ramps and the seasoning in the sausage provided all the flavor anyone could want, while the beans rounded things out perfectly. The Strascinati turned out to be a real showstopper – their thick, chewy texture was almost dumpling-like and gave the dish a heartiness we all loved. It was a dish we were left aching to try again for several years.

Why so long? For one, getting the sausage again would mean placing another order with Fossil Farms – well worth it, but shipping meat to Chicago from New Jersey is EXPENSIVE. Not something I can afford to do on a whim. Second, Chele’s diagnosis with celiac disease in 2018 threw a monkeywrench in the works. Traditional wheat-based pasta was OUT, and Strascinati Pugliesi – obscure even in traditional form – simply do not exist in a gluten-free option. And third, we needed more ramps.

This year, everything finally lined up in our favor. Fossil Farms ran a free shipping promotion last month that allowed us to stock our freezers full of all sorts of fantastic meats, including that rabbit sausage. Ramps we have been able to purchase from the lovely people at Mick Klüg Farm for two seasons in a row now (and hope to keep doing so for many years to come). And finally, Chele and I figured out a way to make a gluten-free Strascinati Pugliesi substitute using cassava flour.

For the pasta, we followed this cassava flour pasta recipe from Health Starts in the Kitchen. We found that recipe needed no alterations to work for this type of pasta and made the perfect amount we needed for our dish. We then made our best attempt at following the technique in this video to form our cassava dough into something vaguely resembling Strascinati (starting from once the dough is actually formed):

https://vimeo.com/103604536

Our pasta wasn’t nearly as pretty and uniform, and the dough was too fragile to pop them inside-out like you see in the video. But for complete neophytes who were learning on the fly, I think we did quite well for our very first attempt. When we went to boil them, we were worried that they might break up in the pot, but they held together just fine – without sticking together, either. Most importantly, these had a great chewy texture that was exactly what we were looking for.

If you want to try this gluten-free version, you’ll need to give yourself some extra time. It took us around half an hour to make the dough and shape the pasta with both of us working on it. After letting them dry for about 30 minutes, we dropped them into boiling water for a few minutes (until they all floated to the surface). If gluten is not a concern for you, then by all means go find yourself a bag of traditional Strascinati.