How to Make Italian Homemade Pasta — The Exact Emilia-Romagna Recipe by Ratio

Transcript

Speaker: Picture this. It is a Sunday morning in October in a centuries-old apartment in the Quadrilatero district of Bologna, Italy, the bells of San Petronio are ringing across the medieval square, and an old wooden pastry board has been pulled out onto the marble counter, dusted snowy-white with Tipo 00 flour. A pair of weathered nonna hands cracks four glossy deep-orange-yolked eggs into a perfect circular well in the center of the flour, picks up a worn silver fork, and begins gently beating the eggs while pulling flour from the inside walls of the well. Forty-five minutes later, hand-rolled paper-thin yellow sfoglia is being cut into ribbons of fresh tagliatelle that fall into delicate golden nests on a flour-dusted board. This is pasta fatta in casa, homemade Italian pasta. Tonight we walk through the actual Emilia-Romagna recipe, gram by gram, minute by minute. I am joined by sixty-eight-year-old Bolognese nonno chef Giuseppe Romano, fifty years of Sunday pasta in Bologna, and Florence-born food historian Sofia Marchetti.

Speaker: Ascolta, listen to me carefully, my friend! Pasta fatta in casa, the homemade pasta — this is the soul of Italy, you understand? In my Bologna, every nonna, every mamma, every Sunday, she make the pasta with her hands. NOT Marco Polo from China! Madonna mia, this is myth! Pasta in Italy is from Etruscan time, three thousand year ago, in Tuscany. The Romans, they were eating laganon — wide flat pasta, like lasagna — already in second century. The fresh egg pasta, la pasta all'uovo, she is from Emilia-Romagna, my region — Bologna, Modena, Parma, Reggio Emilia. Why? Because here we have the best wheat, the best egg from the chicken who eat the corn, the best butter from the cow of Reggiano. The recipe for one nonna it is the same recipe she learn from her nonna and her nonna learn from her nonna. Same hand, same board, same fork, same five hundred year. This is la tradizione.

Speaker: And Nonno Giuseppe is exactly right — pasta in Italy has profound regional geography. In the north, in Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont and Lombardy, pasta is made with eggs because the climate and dairy support egg-rich, butter-finished cooking — la pasta all'uovo, fresh egg pasta like tagliatelle, fettuccine, pappardelle, tortellini, lasagna. In the south, in Puglia and Sicily and Campania, pasta is made with semolina flour and water only because the wheat is hard durum wheat and the climate is hot — la pasta secca, dried pasta like orecchiette, cavatelli, spaghetti. In Liguria, the famous trofie are short hand-rolled twists made of flour and water. The same word pasta covers hundreds of regional shapes, each tied to a specific landscape, a specific harvest, a specific sauce. Tonight Nonno Giuseppe will teach us the canonical Emilia-Romagna fresh egg pasta — the foundation.

Speaker: OK, ascolta! For four person, you need only TWO ingredient. The first — la farina, the flour. Four hundred gram of Tipo 00 Italian wheat flour. NOT all-purpose American flour, Madonna! Tipo 00 it is very finely ground, soft wheat, low protein, around nine percent. Brand I use is Caputo or Molino Quaglia, from Italy. The second ingredient — le uova, the eggs! Four whole large egg, room temperature, from happy chicken. In Italy we say one egg for one hundred gram flour, this is la regola, the rule. The egg, she must have the deep orange yolk, not the pale yellow! Pinch of fine salt, just little bit. That is all! NO oil for pasta-water people, NO milk, NO water in the dough! For four person — four hundred gram flour, four egg, pinch of salt. Pesare! Weigh it! Always you must weigh.

Speaker: Now the technique — la fontana, the well, the heart of Italian pasta making. Pour the four hundred grams of Tipo 00 flour onto a clean wooden pastry board — never a marble surface, which is too cold and pulls heat from the dough. With your fingertips, build a perfect circular well in the middle, wider than you think — about twenty centimeters across, with high walls. Crack all four eggs directly into the well, add the pinch of salt. Take a sturdy fork and begin beating the eggs while keeping the flour walls intact. As the eggs become smooth, gradually start pulling flour from the inside of the wall down into the egg, a little at a time, until the mixture becomes a thick paste that no longer flows. Then drop the fork and use your bench scraper and your hands to fold the remaining flour in. Once a shaggy dough forms, knead it firmly on the board for eight to ten minutes — push, fold, quarter-turn, repeat — until it is silky-smooth, elastic, and bounces back when poked. Cover with an upturned bowl and rest at room temperature for thirty minutes minimum. This rest is essential — the gluten relaxes and the dough becomes pliable.

Speaker: Now we roll out la sfoglia! Listen, this is the magic moment. The dough she is rested, supple, alive. Divide in four equal piece, keep three covered under bowl. Take one piece. Two way to roll — the OLD way with mattarello, my way, the way of nonna! It is wooden rolling pin, very long, one meter, no handles. Dust the board with semolina, never 00 — semolina prevent sticking. Roll from center out, rotate the dough a quarter turn every roll, keep dusting. Three minute, four minute, until the sfoglia she is so thin you can see your hand through it — one millimeter exact, the thickness of a credit card! Or you use macchina, pasta machine — start setting one, run through, fold in third, run again, three time. Then setting two, setting three, all the way to setting six or seven. Final sfoglia must be one millimeter, no more. Let the sfoglia drape on board for ten minute to dry slightly — this make the cutting easier.

Speaker: Cutting is the next step — and the shape determines what sauce you use. For tagliatelle, the classic Bolognese ribbon: dust the rested sfoglia generously with semolina, fold it loosely in thirds like a letter, then with a sharp knife slice perpendicular ribbons exactly eight millimeters wide. For fettuccine, slice at six millimeters. For pappardelle, the wide ribbons that hold rich meat sauces, slice at two to three centimeters. Unfold each slice into delicate nests on a semolina-dusted wooden board and let them dry, uncovered, for ten to fifteen minutes — long enough that the surface is no longer tacky, but the pasta is still pliable inside. Now cooking. Bring four liters of water to a vigorous rolling boil — one hundred degrees Celsius, two hundred twelve Fahrenheit. Add fifteen grams of fine sea salt per liter — that's sixty grams total for four liters. Drop the fresh pasta in and stir gently once. Fresh egg pasta cooks in only two to three minutes — start tasting at ninety seconds. It should be al dente — tender with a slight firmness at the center. Reserve one cup of pasta cooking water before you drain.

Speaker: Now FINISHING! Ascolta, this is the most important part, where many people fail! NEVER, never break the pasta. NEVER rinse the pasta with cold water! NEVER pour all the cooking water in the sink — you keep one cup, this water with the starch, she is gold! For simple finish, burro e salvia, butter and sage, my nonna way — in big wide pan, melt eighty gram of good butter, add twelve fresh sage leaf, cook two minute on medium-low until the butter is golden-brown nutty color, smell like hazelnut. Then add the drained tagliatelle directly to the pan with two big spoon of the pasta water. Toss-toss-toss for one minute on the heat — this is mantecare, to mount! The starch from pasta water emulsify with the butter, create silky sauce, every ribbon coated. Off the heat, sixty gram grated Parmigiano-Reggiano twenty-four month aged, fresh black pepper, more sage. Serve immediately in warm bowl. Eat with the people you love and a glass of Lambrusco. PERFETTO!

Speaker: Three takeaways. First, the ratio for four people is exactly four hundred grams of Italian Tipo 00 flour plus four whole large room-temperature eggs plus a pinch of fine salt — nothing else, no oil, no water, no milk. One hundred grams of flour per egg. Always weigh, never measure by volume. Second, the technique is la fontana — pour flour onto a wooden board, build a wide circular well twenty centimeters across, crack the eggs in, beat with a fork while pulling flour from the inside walls, knead by hand for eight to ten minutes until silky-smooth and elastic, then cover and rest at room temperature for thirty minutes minimum before rolling. Third, roll the sfoglia to exactly one millimeter thickness with a mattarello or a pasta machine, cut into eight-millimeter tagliatelle, dry on a semolina-dusted board for fifteen minutes, then cook in four liters of vigorously boiling salted water — sixty grams salt total — for only two to three minutes until al dente. Reserve one cup pasta water, finish with the mantecare technique in butter and sage and twenty-four-month Parmigiano-Reggiano. Eat immediately. Thank you, Nonno Giuseppe Romano. Thank you, Sofia Marchetti. Until next time.