Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [67]
Note This is the procedure to follow if you are going to cut the pasta into noodles. If you plan to use it for raviolini or other stuffed shapes, please see the stuffed pasta note.
Close down the opening between the machine’s rollers by one notch. Take the first pasta strip you had flattened and run it once through the rollers, feeding it by its narrow end. Do not fold it, but spread it flat on the cloth towel, and move on to the next pasta strip in the sequence.
When all the pasta strips have gone through the narrower opening once, bring the rollers closer together by another notch, and run the strips of pasta through them once again, following the procedure described above. You will find the strips becoming longer, as they get thinner, and if there is not enough room to spread them out on the counter, you can let them hang over the edge. Continue thinning the strips in sequence, progressively closing down the opening between the rollers one notch at a time, until the pasta is as thin as you want it. This step-by-step thinning procedure, which commercial makers of fresh pasta greatly abbreviate or skip altogether, is responsible, along with proper kneading, for giving good pasta its body and structure.
Stuffed pasta note Pasta dough to be used as a wrapper for stuffing should be soft and sticky. You must, therefore, make the following change in the sequence described above: Take just one piece of dough at a time through the entire thinning process, cut it, and stuff it as the recipe you’ve chosen describes. Then go on to the next piece. Keep all the pieces of dough waiting to be thinned out tightly wrapped in plastic wrap.
Drying For all cut pasta, fettuccine, tagliolini, pappardelle, and so on, allow the strips spread on the towels to dry for 10 minutes or more, depending on the temperature and ventilation of your kitchen. From time to time, turn the strips over. The pasta is ready for cutting when it is still pliant enough that it won’t crack when cut, but not so soft and moist that the strands will stick to each other. Pasta requires no additional drying except for the purpose of storing it.
Cutting flat pasta Use the broader set of cutters on the machine to make fettuccine, and the narrower ones for tonnarelli (see below) or tagliolini. When the pasta strips are sufficiently, but not excessively, dried, feed them through the cutter of choice. As the ribbons of noodles emerge from the cutter, separate them and spread them out on the cloth towels. To cook, gather the pasta in a single towel, as described in "The Essentials of Cooking Pasta", and slide it into boiling, salted water.
SPECIAL NOODLE CUTS
• Tonnarelli One of the most interesting shapes is this thin, square noodle from central Italy, which goes superbly well with an exceptional variety of sauces. It is also known as maccheroni alla chitarra because of the guitar-like tool used in central Italy for cutting it. It is as thick as it is broad. Its firmer body gives it the substance and “bite” of factory pasta, while its surface maintains the texture and affinity for delicate sauces of all homemade pasta.
The machine does a perfect job of making tonnarelli. The dough for tonnarelli must be left thicker than that for fettuccine and other noodles. To obtain the square cross-section this noodle must have, the thickness of the pasta strip should be equal to the width of the narrower grooves of the machine’s cutter. On most machines, the last thinning setting for tonnarelli is the second before the last. To make sure, run some dough through that setting and make sure that its thickness equals the width of the narrower cutting grooves.
• Pappardelle In Bologna, the city where homemade pasta reigns supreme, this eye-filling broad noodle is one of the favorite cuts. Its larger surface accepts substantial sauces, whether made with meat or vegetables or a combination of both. It has to be cut by hand, because the machine has no cutters for pappardelle. Cut the