like a lot of people
i’m trying to use covid inside time to learn a new language. I chose french. I learned the french
word for pasta, which you might think would just be pasta, as it is in italian
and english, but the french have certain boundaries when it comes to taking
words on loan– so pasta is les pâtes.
It’s always plural. The
sound of it is flat and makes me think of the word pat which then makes me
think of pat the bunny the "touch and feel" children’s book with
all the textures that’s hopefully been updated to not just be about a very
normative fictional white family.
In french, a pâte is
a dough. I was inspired by this to learn how our italian and english ‘pasta’
comes from the Late Latin pasta (“dough, pastry cake, paste”),
from the Ancient Greek πάστα (pásta, “barley
porridge”). ‘Pasta’ is a doublet of ‘paste’ and ‘patty’ meaning it shares the
same etymological root as these words, but has come to our language through
different, modern paths.
There are two major
Italian pasta doughs: egg dough, from flour and eggs, and semolina dough, from
semolina flour and water. Dried pasta is from semolina dough. Part 2 of this
series will be about that type of dough.
I was interested in all of this
because in addition to trying to learn a language this quarantine I’ve also
pursued making pasta by hand. I have become obsessed with the dough, paste,
patty part of pasta. When we think of pasta we don’t often think of those
words– we think of the finished product, of words that reflect pasta shapes,
like spaghetti, fusilli, rigatoni, penne, etc. At least, this is how I used to
think of pasta – represented by the poster hanging in my high school cafeteria
that I was thrilled to find online :
Good how the image includes salt, even if it wasn’t meant as a reference to the ancient greek παστός (pastós, “sprinkled with salt”).
Last spring I
started making egg dough. Egg dough is wonderful for making noodles, it’s the
dough of Emilia, the home of Bolognese. It is the dough meant for buttery
sauces (think buttered noodles, what is better?)
I started out
following Evan Funke’s method for egg pasta, which is helpful and nicely
outlined in his book, American Sfoglino. The trouble with Funke is his
dogmatic and agro ideas about hand rolling pasta (in his restaurant Felix Trattoria,
there’s a plaque that says ‘f* # * your pasta machine’) and his
bandying about of his mattarello, a long, thin rolling pin, which Em rightly
noted had a priapic feel. Personally I do hand roll pasta, and I do have a
mattarrello. The thing is I am still terrible at using it, and I have to deal
with my partner Dave referring to it as my phallus. While cleaning up the
kitchen he might say, for instance, ‘is your phallus water safe, should i clean
your phallus in the sink or just dust it off ?’ All this being said, I am
only writing about rolling out pasta in the recipe that follows because I
haven’t really figured out how to knead and shape using the machine.
As the weather got
warmer last spring and into summer, I switched from egg based to the semolina
dough of southern Italy, thanks to Em. She is a great advocate for this dough. But
when it got cold again in the fall, I longed for richer noodles to accompany
braises and stewed sauces, so I went back to egg based, this time conferring
with Marcella Hazan.
Hazan tripped me up.
The first time I followed her recipe, it was the best egg dough I’d ever made. The
heavens parted and I felt I figured out pasta dough forever. But then…every
other time was trouble. The ratio of egg to flour seemed high and hard to
manage. * It was often too wet. Every time I made the dough, it was different,
because my eggs were of different size. Finally I resorted to weighing my eggs.
This felt fussy, but at least I got a consistent result, right ? Wrong.
When I tried it out on Monday night (if you’re in Chicago you know it was very
humid) the change in the air meant I had to stray even from my egg weighing
system.
Ultimately I decided
it honors Hazan most, works best given the wildly different weather we have in
this city, and is the easiest system to just use her original ratio + a little more flour, and know
that you are probably always going to have to add more flour, and to not be
scared of that.
She gives the
excellent tip that you know you have the right ratio of flour to egg when you
stick your finger in the dough, and if you don’t feel any tacky or sticky
resistance, you are good to go. Otherwise, add more flour.
*Hazan’s ratio is
about 4 :3, flour to egg. In his excellent book Ratio: the simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking, Michael Ruhlman
goes for a 3 :2 ratio. Others like Samin Nosrat have a high ratio of eggs
to flour (even higher than Hazan) in her basic fresh pasta dough recipe for the
New York Times, but she use lots of yolks. I don’t know enough about food
science, but imagine the yolks make it easier to handle the dough, with higher
fat than a whole egg with the white. Nosrat’s recipe is very solid, but it’s a
little eggy for me.
Egg-based dough Recipe – adapted from Marcella Hazan
Makes enough for 2
large entree portions or 4 appetizer portions
Ideal tools :
-Large bowl
preferably with a wide bottom
-Fork
-Bowl or bench
scraper
-Counter or tabletop
surface
Ingredients :
-About 1 ¼ c of
00 flour, plus another roughly ¼ - ½ c, depending on humidity and egg size
-2 eggs (try not to use very big eggs)
La fontana
This
is the fontana, or fountain, method, it’s like a fountain because you have a
little pool of liquid in the center.
Place flour in bowl.
Make a well in the
center and crack in eggs.
Break up the eggs
with a fork, while keeping the liquid in the center.
Once the eggs are
well blended, slowly start to incorporate the flour.
Keep going until all
the flour and liquid have made contact, but before you have a very shaggy
dough.
Dump out onto clean
countertop.
Cutting in
Now
you do the ‘cutting in’ – like you were making biscuits. This is the only part I remembered to take a picture of but I think it's worth it, this step isn't always included, and I find it a helpful step.
Use the bench
scraper to further incorporate the liquid and flour.
Rest
Once you’ve formed a dough, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temp for 10 minutes. You want it more floury than not at this stage.
Knead
Knead the dough until it feels smooth as silk, when you run your finger along its surface, for about 10 minutes. Do the finger test to check the ratios. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let rest (ideally for 30 minutes or up to 24 hours) before rolling out.
To make the noodles, use a little flour on your counter and rolling pin and take your time getting it down to about 1/8 « or 1/16 » or pretty much as thin as you can.
If you’ve double this recipe, make two sheets and stretch one at a time.
Sprinkle semolina flour over the sheet. Fold it in half then in half again, and transfer to cutting board. For tagliatelle, cut into 1/8 » strips, using a carving or chef’s knife.
Use more semolina flour to keep your noodles from sticking together while waiting to be cooked. I like to toss mine around to make them kind of krimped.
Tagliatelle with lamb and onions or ramps
In it's essence bolognese is a butter sauce, it is meant to be creamy and coating. I wanted to make
something like a lamb bolognese, but we didn’t have celery or tomatoes. This
‘white bolognese’ was really tasty, the sweetness of the carrot came through
very well, which was nice with the ramps.
I don’t really like
how pungent ramp bulbs are, so cooking them for so long in butter and lamb fat
made them very mild. It’s not necessarily the best use of ramp bulbs, but it’s
very tasty.
Ingredients :
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion or half a
big onion minced nicely, or about a dozen cleaned ramp bulbs, cut into ½ inch
pieces.
Ramp tops (if using
ramps)
One carrot, minced
nicely
1 lb lamb
3/4 c milk
½ c white wine
Half a clove of
garlic, grated
A few tablespoons
chopped parmesan
Heat a heavy
bottomed sauce pan. Melt butter. Add your ramps or onion and cook a few
minutes. Add minced carrot and cook a few minutes. Add lamb and cook til red is
gone. Add milk, cook until reduced by about a quarter. Add white wine, garlic
and then simmer for 2 1/2 hours or so, until there’s little liquid left.
Bring a big pot of
water to a boil, then salt generously.
Get a skillet going
on medium- high heat. Toss your cleaned ramp tops in the skillet and sear until
lightly browned. Remove leaves and give them a rough chop.
Cook noodles for 1
minute, then transfer them into your saucepot to cook with the lamb over medium-low
heat for another minute or so. Add parmesan. Put in bowls and garnish with ramp
tops.
This was delicious with the fruit-forward, zingy
Primitivo Anfora from Cristiano Guttarolo. I would also recommend Les œillets,
the orange wine from Jean Yves Peron – it would surely bring lift and vibrancy
to this creamy, delicious dish of pasta.
New wines in the store are landing on Friday – we are so, so excited. Kindeli from New Zealand, Le Coste from Lazio and Zumo from Californie. Can’t wait.
Please don’t hesitate to email us at rainbowwinechi@gmail.com or DM rainbow_wines on instragram with comments or questions.
-Cub
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