How to make homemade tagliatelle

Preparing fresh pasta is quite simple: with fresh eggs and good quality flour you're done. Here's how to make egg noodles.

Tagliatelle are a typical pasta format from Emilia and in particular from the city of Bologna. Like all forms of egg pasta, bringing them to the table is a true hymn to Italian cuisine. They traveled the world together with emigrants, particularly around the early 1900s, becoming famous even overseas.

But have you ever wondered how to make tagliatelle at home? What are the most suitable condiments for this pasta shape? Here is the basic recipe for fresh homemade pasta registered at the Bologna Chamber of Commerce. Yes, because tagliatelle are serious business!

• Basic recipe
• Homemade tagliatelle with the machine
• How to season tagliatelle
• Conservation
• History

How to make homemade tagliatelle

1. For the homemade tagliatelle recipe, start by making a fountain of flour on a cutting board or pastry board.
2. Break the eggs into the well and slowly begin to incorporate the flour using a fork.
3. Then knead vigorously by hand for about 15 minutes to obtain a homogeneous, smooth and elastic dough. Cover the dough block with cling film and leave to rest in a cool place for an hour .
4. Take the dough ball again and roll out the pastry with the help of the pasta machine or rolling pin until you obtain a thin sheet . The thickness is not codified but the ideal is between 0.6-0.8 mm .
5. Roll the pastry on itself very delicately and with the help of a knife or a pasta cutter, cut your tagliatelle to a thickness of 7 mm .
6. Roll out and let the tagliatelle dry covered with a clean cloth for thirty minutes.
7. The cooking time of the tagliatelle is approximately 5 minutes. Salt the water well then drain them by sautéing them directly in the pan with the sauce.

Here is a video where you can see a good pasta maker busy rolling out and cutting tagliatelle.

Homemade tagliatelle with the machine

It is also possible to obtain tagliatelle of the right size with the appropriate machine equipped with a die . In this case , divide the dough into 4 parts and roll them out one at a time from the greatest thickness to the smallest. Meanwhile, keep the other pieces covered.

Then pass them one by one through the tagliatelle die, making sure you have a lightly floured pastry board (we recommend using semolina ). As they are ready, form a nest and leave to dry. Also in this case they will cook for 5 minutes in plenty of salted water.

How to season tagliatelle

If you want to prepare tasty and tasty first courses, in addition to good pasta, good seasoning is also important. One of the characteristics of fresh homemade pasta is the roughness that manages to retain the sauce perfectly.

When you think of tagliatelle, your first thought certainly goes to meat sauce Bolognese , cooked for a long time and extremely rich and tasty. Alternatively, you can opt for the equally famous tagliatelle with mushrooms , for tagliatelle with salmon , old-fashioned but very tasty, or transform them into something richer as we did with the baked tagliatelle nests.

Conservation

We advise you to store the tagliatelle separately from the sauce if possible. This way they will keep in the refrigerator , covered with a cloth, for a couple of days . If they darken, don't worry: it's the flour's fault. You can also freeze the noodles by placing the nests on a tray. Once hardened in the freezer (a couple of hours will be enough), transfer to freezer bags.

Origin and history

History and legend create an indissoluble bond when trying to trace the origins of tagliatelle. To think that it was a man from Bologna, a certain Augusto Majani, who spread the legend in 1931 which is still passed off as history today. In fact, it is said that tagliatelle were prepared for the first time by the cook of Giovanni II di Bentivoglio, lord of Bologna in 1487. Mastro Zefirano , this is his name, was inspired by the blond hair of Lucrezia Borgia , daughter of the Pope, in the creation of this new format. The tagliatelle were a gift for the young woman's wedding to Alfonso D'Este, Duke of Ferrara. The name therefore derives from the act of cutting the pastry.

Yet the only grain of truth in this romantic legend lies in its connection with lasagna. Already present in Greek and Roman times, they appeared as real tagliatelle only in the 16th century in the work of Cristoforo di Messisbugo as "lasagnuolle overo tagliatelle tirati" . Originally, however, they were served either as a side dish , for example on top of meat pies and stews, or as a dessert together with sugar and cinnamon.

Continuing the journey through the culinary literature of this iconic dish we find the masculine "tagliatelle" by Tommaso Garzoni and the detailed recipe by Bartolomeo Scappi :

Mix 2 pounds of fine flour with three eggs and lukewarm water and mix well on a table for a quarter of an hour and then spread it out thinly with a stick, and let the dough dry out a little and cut it with the spur the edges are too large… and when everything is dry but not too dry as otherwise it would crack, sprinkle with fine flour and cut into strips with a large, thin knife… Once they are dry, make soups with fatty meat broth, or with milk and butter, and cooked, serve hot with cheese, sugar and cinnamon.

Pellegrino Artusi also talks about it in his book, underlining the importance of making them long to avoid them resembling "kitchen scraps". In short, even for tagliatelle as well as for ragù and lasagne the Italian Academy of Cuisine had to intervene by depositing the recipe at the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1972. Since then tagliatelle must be 7 mm wide when raw (8 mm da cotte) or the 12270th part of the Torre degli Asinelli .

Read also

Homemade green tagliatelle