Foglie d'ulivo
FOH-lyeh DOO-lee-voh
Flat leaf with a pinched vein, often tinted green with spinach.
Name. Olive leaves.
What it is
Foglie d'ulivo are olive leaves: flat pointed ovals of pasta with a crease down the middle, usually coloured green with spinach. They come from Puglia and Liguria and are made by pressing a small ball of dough flat with the thumb and drawing it along the board.
Most dried versions are extruded, but the hand-made ones are rough and uneven.
How to cook foglie d'ulivo
8 to 12 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
8:00
Start when the water returns to the boil.
Water and salt
- Pasta, dry
- 400 g
- Water
- 4 L
- Salt
- 40 g
100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.
The steps
- Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
- Add the foglie d'ulivo. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 7 minutes. A hairline of white at the centre is al dente.
- Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
- Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.
Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.
How it holds sauce
A flat rough leaf coats well and takes light sauces: pesto, oil and cherry tomatoes, a vegetable sauce, a light seafood dressing.
Pairs with: Pesto alla genovese · Pomodoro · Vegetable ragu · Aglio e olio
Classic plates: Foglie d'ulivo al pesto, Foglie d'ulivo con pomodorini e basilico.
Nutrition
Per 100 g of dry semolina pasta. The shape does not change these numbers. The dough does, so a whole wheat or egg version of this shape reads differently. See every dough.
| Per 100 g | Energy | Protein | Carbohydrate | Fibre | Fat | Sodium | Iron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | 371 kcal | 13.0 g | 74.7 g | 3.2 g | 1.5 g | 6 mg | 3.3 mg |
| Cooked | 158 kcal | 5.8 g | 30.9 g | 1.8 g | 0.9 g | 1 mg | 1.3 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 235 g cooked, 371 kcal and 13 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.3 times its weight in the pot.
No foglie d'ulivo? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Other names
olive leaves, foglie di ulivo.
Sources
- Cook time: typical dried; fresh 4 to 6 min.
- Photograph: Foglie ulivo.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169736, Pasta, dry, enriched; FDC 169737, Pasta, cooked, enriched, without added salt), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Foglie d'ulivo, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q5464121, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.