Tagliatelle with asparagus tips

[di reston]

Today I did tagliatelle with fresh asparagus tips (recipe given t0 me by a friend). Delicious!

Here it is:

For the pasta: (per portion)

100g flour, 50g '00' flour and 50g durum wheat flour - 1 egg per portion
(for ravioli etc, it's '0' flour, or strong durum wheat flour)

1 egg

salt.

In Piedmont, the recipe tends to be richer:

1kg type 00 flour + 5 whole eggs + 10 egg yolks, therefore per person 1/2 whole egg + 2 egg yolks. Another, less tricky recipe would be

1Kg type 00 flour, 2 egg yolks and 8 eggs (Quantities for 10 people)

salt.

Sift the flour onto a large pasta board ,making a volcano shape and then make a crater in it and put in the eggs, which you should previously have stirred well but not vigourously. Work it until it's soft and smooth. Every now and again, slap it down onto the board a few times, work it again, let it rest it for about 1/2 hour. By then it should be elastic and workable. Roll out on the pasta board (a large wooden board called a 'spianatoia',flouring lightly so it doesn't stick, and then roll it out until it's about 2ml thick. Then flour it very very lightly again, and roll up into a cylinder. Cut the cylinder into slices about 5mm wide, and then pick them up to loosen the strands and let them dry a little.

The rest is easy:

For 5 people:

100g fresh egg pasta per person
500g fresh asparagus tips
30cl fresh cream
50g butter
50g parmesan cheese, grated
fresh thyme to taste
Salt and a good dusting of fresh ground black pepper.

Bring the necessary quantity of salted water to the boil
Sauté the asparagus tips in the butter, then add the cream. Season.
When the water comes to the boil, cook the tagliatelle (it will cook very very quickly, so keep an eye on it), then drain and add to the tips and the butter and cream. Just before serving toss the Parmesan in, and serve.
Buon appetito.

I make my own tagliatelle for this, but shop bought dried ones work quite well if you don't have time.

di reston

Enough is never as good as a feast Oscar Wilde

 

[Aunt Bea]

Thanks!

This looks like a wonderful recipe that could be used to highlight a variety of fresh vegetables, things like broccoli, mushrooms, red peppers, peas, etc...

 

[di reston]

Glad you like it - I'm also planning to send the recipe for water based pasta, which is very popular in southern Italy, and which dries very well too and is ideal for small pasta, along with a few other recipes to serve it! A bit at a time, otherwise the message'd turn into a book!

di reston

Enough is never as good as a feast Oscar Wilde


Enough is never as good as a feast

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Sounds wonderful!!!

 

[Addie]

Sometimes I can find this pasta in my grocery store, but mostly no. So now I make my own. I have always loved this particular pasta. It is a fun one to eat. And the fact that I can skip one step of running it through the pasta machine for cutting, is something that saves a lot of time. Roll it up and cut it by hand. Shake it loose and create nests. Perfect!

 

[di reston]

You can also make tagliolini, a much thinner ribbon than tagliatelle. It doesn't take as long to let the nests dry out a bit before use. A quick and delicious way of serving them is with butter, fresh chopped sage and Parmesan - as well, of course, with a really good classic ragù like Bolognese. In season, when you can get them, butter, truffles and Parmesan are heaven, if pricey. Worth it at least once a year!
Round here, we have both white and black truffles, the white Alba truffle being the most prized, but don't use cream with them - butter works better. We get them here where I live, and in the autumn you can see the truffle hunters out with their dogs hunting for their truffles. It's a myth that they go out in the dead of night, but for the dogs it can be quite risky as it's not uncommon for a good truffle dog to be poisoned by rival hunters. Heart breaking, but it's one of those things that happens for profit.

Where we live is the homeland of the Slow Food movement, the home of Nutella - Ferrero is a major employer - and Cinzano, and also the homeland of the ritual of the aperitif.

di reston


Enough is never as good as a feast Oscar Wilde

 

[Addie]

di reston, I grew up here in East Boston. During WWII we had a prisoner's camp out at Wood Island for Italian soldiers. The women of the community would use some of their rations to make food for them and bring it out there. The only reason it was allowed was because it was less food the government had to feed them.

After the war, a lot of the soldiers chose to stay here and sent for their families. As a result I grew up in a very Italian neighborhood. And I am mostly Native American. Immigration even had their own mini Ellis Island right down on Marginal Street. You could always tell when a boat was coming in. Folks left their home early in the morning and took the trolley down to wait there for their relative to get off the boat and go through the procedure.

They settled right in and opened small stores and made this their home. There were small stores where if you didn't or couldn't speak Italian, they would take your order by you pointing to what you wanted.

My son Pirate married a girl from Naples. Her mother has been here for more than fifty years, and still can't speak English fluently. Her children or husband have to translate for her. She shops by the pictures on the cans and pointing to what she wants. I love Raffella dearly. She made all her food from scratch. Never bought a package of pasta. Not in her home. That was like breaking one of the Ten Commandants. Her husband made all of the sausage meats. Every Easter she would send me a Pizzagana Pie. My son is divorced now, but every holiday he makes it a point to visit them. They still love him and send him on his way with an armful of Italian foods. I recently saw them at a family gathering for my grandson's Confirmation. She gave me the biggest hug I have ever had. I thought she would never let go.

Having this family join ours left us feeling like we also were Italian. And I love them for that. Only happy memories.

 

[di reston]

I graduated in Italian, and my first job was as visa officer at the Italian Consulate in Manchester, where there was - and still is - a large Italian community. I loved it. The people were such nice, genuine, straightforward people, and like in your experience, made virtually all their own food, including preserves, pasta and the like. We got together so more times for a spaghettata than I can count, like your experience, always made their own sausages etc. In those days you could only get olive oil at the pharmacy (very different now!), and bell peppers were virtually unheard of, but we had many wonderful evenings. Now I live in italy, and things are still the same, although there are supermarkets with modern day products and food just like anywhere else - it's difficult to get non-Italian ingredients though, partially because the Italian government promotes home products and traditions very heavily. Last night we went out with friends to a small local restaurant - fantastic pizzas and local but very simple food - nothing mind-blowing, but everything very simple and beautifully done. Of course, there are amazing places like Restaurant 'La Francescana' in Modena, just recently acclaimed as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world. There, it really is mind-blowing!

di reston


Enough is never as good as a feast Oscar Wilde

 

[liliedu13]

it's a good idea thank you

 

[tenspeed]

Thanks for the post. I found a couple of videos on YouTube that clarify this for those of us who have never made pasta by hand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL_XLecEcY4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESz55eORW44

I have a Simac electric pasta machine (extrusion type) that I haven't used since the last millennium, and even then it was just a few times. Now that I'm fully retired and have time for such frivolities I'm planning to make pasta. The tagliatelle looks easy enough, and I can make it without a hand crank pasta machine. The store bought tagliatelle is in much longer strips - probably 20 inches or so.

Will all purpose flour make acceptable pasta? I try to avoid buying special purpose ingredients, but if it works out I'll hunt for the flour called for. I already have three types of flour on hand (AP, bread, and rye).

I'll be interested in your water based pasta recipes.

 

[Addie]

Thanks for the post. I found a couple of videos on YouTube that clarify this for those of us who have never made pasta by hand:

I have a Simac electric pasta machine (extrusion type) that I haven't used since the last millennium, and even then it was just a few times. Now that I'm fully retired and have time for such frivolities I'm planning to make pasta. The tagliatelle looks easy enough, and I can make it without a hand crank pasta machine. The store bought tagliatelle is in much longer strips - probably 20 inches or so.

Will all purpose flour make acceptable pasta? I try to avoid buying special purpose ingredients, but if it works out I'll hunt for the flour called for. I already have three types of flour on hand (AP, bread, and rye).

I'll be interested in your water based pasta recipes.

I have always used AP flour. If I remember to buy it, I mix it with a little semolina. But I don't think it is an absolute necessity. AP will make a perfectly tasty pasta. But I do think you have to knead it a bit longer than if you added some semolina flour. You need to develop the gluten more than if you had the semolina added. Since you have bread flour, you might make a small batch with that. Bread flour has more gluten than the AP does.

 

[GotGarlic]

I have always used AP flour. If I remember to buy it, I mix it with a little semolina. But I don't think it is an absolute necessity. AP will make a perfectly tasty pasta. But I do think you have to knead it a bit longer than if you added some semolina flour. You need to develop the gluten more than if you had the semolina added. Since you have bread flour, you might make a small batch with that. Bread flour has more gluten than the AP does.

Technically speaking, bread flour has more protein, not more gluten. But when the protein is activated by moisture and kneading, more gluten is developed, giving it more structure.

 

[di reston]

Tagliatelle with Asparagus

It's been a few days since I last contributed to the Forum, but here, on request, is the recipe for water pasta. This comes from an area of Italy called Lucania, whose main city is Potenza, south east of Rome and notorious for the danger of earthquakes. Generally speaking, water based pastas are used more in southern Italy than they are in the north, where the fresh pasta tends to be egg pasta in ribbons and filled pasta such as ravioli and cappelletti. There seems to be a preference in the south for water pasta in short and small shapes, and spaghetti 'alla chitarra' (guitar) cut on a rectangular frame with strings that bears a kind of resemblance to the musical instrument. The pasta is rolled into sheets which are then placed on top and are pushed through the strands leaving the spaghetti on the bottom.
Sophia Loren, who was an amazing cook, and wrote several very knowledgeable cookery books, famously said 'Making pasta made me the woman I am'. Anyway, back to making the water pasta:

330gr. strong flour (durum wheat), or the contents of three fistfuls of of flour.
170g tepid water
salt
NO OIL

Make a volcano and crater with the salted flour. Add the water a bit at a time, drawing in the flour as you go. When the water is incorporated, draw in the rest of the remaining flour and start kneading. Knead until you get a smooth ball of dough. Rest the dough for 30 mins, and you have a rest as well. Then start shaping the pasta into whatever shapes you like.

A couple of suggestions:

Orecchiette: take a ball of pasta about the size of a fist, and hand roll it into a sausage about 1.5cm thick. Cut into sections about 75mm thick, then press each ball over your middle finger to make a little bowl. Leave to dry a little more, or until you're ready to cook them. They cook in about 30 - 45 secs.

Strascinati: (pronounced 'strashinarty')
A great tradition in southern Italy, because they are designed to hold a fair amount of sauce, usually ragù:
This time, make sausage shapes about the size of your thumb. Then, using your index finger, middle finger and ring finger, make indentations in the pasta and pull your fingers towards you, leaving a thick edge. You could call them knuckledusters! as it were.
These are always served with a meat ragù, made with the cheapest cuts of lamb, pork and veal, and chilli pepper sausage called 'pezzente'.

Strangolapreti (Priest stranglers - one wonders at times where on earth these names appeared from!)
Very easy. make squares of pasta about 5mm thick, and roll them up corner to corner.

Being fresh, these pastas cook very quickly, so once they're in the pan, don't leave them.

Have fun!! Buon appetito!

di reston

Enough is never as good as a feast Oscar Wilde

 

[tenspeed]

Thanks, Di. I knew that there were different shapes of pasta for different dishes, but didn't realize there are regional differences as well.

 

[Addie]

Thanks. I grew up being exposed to only the egg based pasta. I knew there was a water based one, but whenever I asked about it, I got the remark that those folks didn't know how to make real pasta. Regional jealousy I guess.

 

[IrinaUrsu]

Sounds delicious!

 

[Sagittarius]

Di Reston,

An exceptionally extraordinary means of preparing.

Thank you for posting.

Have a wonderful day.