Sablés

This is the final post in a short series on cookies. We began with a recipe for Strassburgers, followed by a recipe for Cantucci di Pinoli e Rosmarino. Now we conclude with Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for an outstanding French cookie called a sablé. The recipe appeared in a 7 November 2004 New York Times article entitled “Cookie Master”.

Wonderfully rich, Greenspan’s sablés are crisp yet tender with a distinctly crumbly texture (sablé means sandy in French). Where most sablé recipes call for just a pinch of salt, Greenspan, influenced by the great pastry chef Pierre Hermé, adds considerably more. Her take on the sablé is the only cookie that begins to rival my dear old aunt’s Armenian butter cookie called kurabia.

Here is Greenspan’s recipe for sablés.

• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter (preferably high-fat, like Plugrá), softened at room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted before measuring
• ½ teaspoon salt, preferably sea salt
• 2 large egg yolks, preferably at room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

For the decoration (optional):

• 1 egg yolk
• Crystal or dazzle sugar

1. Working in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until it is smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars and salt and continue to beat until smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy, about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 2 egg yolks, again beating until well blended.

2. Turn off the mixer, pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the mixer and pulse the mixer about 5 times at low speed for 1 or 2 seconds each time. Take a peek; if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, stir for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. If you still have some flour on the bottom of the bowl, stop mixing and use a rubber spatula to work the rest of it into the dough. (The dough will not come together in a ball—and it shouldn't. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you're aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy dough. When pinched, it should feel a little like Play-Doh.)

3. Scrape the dough onto a work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long (it's easiest to work on a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to help form the log). Wrap the logs well and chill them for at least 2 hours. The dough may be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

4. When ready to bake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and keep it at the ready.

5. To decorate the edges of the sablés, whisk the egg yolk until smooth. Place one log of chilled dough on a piece of waxed paper and brush it with yolk (the glue), and then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with sugar. Trim the ends of the roll if they are ragged and slice the log into 1/3-inch-thick cookies.

6. Place the rounds on the baking sheet, leaving an inch of space between each cookie, and bake for 17 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the halfway point. When properly baked, the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top. Let the cookies rest 1 or 2 minutes before carefully lifting them onto a cooling rack with a wide metal spatula. Repeat with the remaining log of dough. (Make sure the sheet is cool before baking each batch.) Makes about 50 cookies.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to All!

Cantucci di Pinoli e Rosmarino

This is the second post in a short series on cookies. We began with a recipe for Strassburgers from a Swedish cookbook entitled Sju Sorters Kakor. Next up is a recipe for Cantucci di Pinoli e Rosmarino from a new cookbook by Mona Talbott and Mirella Misenti entitled Biscotti: Recipes from the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome: Rome Sustainable Food Project [2010].

The American Academy in Rome’s mission is to foster the pursuit of advanced research and independent study in the fine arts and humanities. Inspired by Alice Waters’s vision of making the Academy’s food reflect its high ideals of scholarship and art, the Academy launched its Roman Sustainable Food Program in 2007. In Biscotti’s Forward, Waters writes: “The recipes in this book are a perfect expression of the values of conviviality and purity embodied by the Rome Sustainable Food Project. Each of these cookies brings with it a taste of time and place—the ingredients are seasonal, organic and local—and no cookie is so big or so sweet that eating one will interrupt conversations at the end of a meal.”

Biscotti is not and makes no claim to be a collection of authentic Italian recipes. Rather, the cookbook features fifty cookies that are a part of the kitchen’s repertoire. Some of the cookies are Italian, for example Brutti Ma Buoni (or Ugly but Good). Other cookies are quintessentially American, such as Snickerdoodles. However, all of the cookies in Biscotti are Italian in spirit; like Roman cooking, they are direct and simple. Essential flavors of Italy—pine nuts and rosemary, cornmeal and almonds, pistachios and oranges—permeate the book’s collection.

If you pick up this book you will be struck by its handy size. Like Sju Sorters Kakor, it is half the size of a typical cookbook. I find these dimensions particularly useful and friendly. (A number of my British cookbooks are like-sized.) Biscotti can and should be compact as it presents a limited offering. I think its narrow focus is a virtue and not a fault. Biscotti is concise and easy to use.

I also like the size of the kitchen’s cookies. As Waters states, the biscotti presented are piccolini (i.e., small or tiny). They are just the right size to serve with coffee or tea, or as a dessert with a glass of wine.

Here is a recipe for a pine nut and rosemary cookie called Cantucci di Pinoli e Rosmarino. This unique and wonderful cookie is a variation of the classic, twice-baked Biscotti di Prato.

• 110 g / ¾ cup pine nuts
• 175 g / 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 10 g / 2 tbsp fine cornmeal
• 2 g / ½ tsp baking powder
• 2 g / ½ tsp salt
• 4 g / 2 tsp rosemary, minced
• 60 g / ¼ cup + 1 tsp butter
• 138 g / ½ cup + 3 tbsp granulated sugar
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 large egg
• 10 ml / 2 tsp Marsala

1) Preheat the oven to 150°C / 300°F.

2) Spread the pine nuts evenly on a baking sheet and toast for 8 – 10 minutes or until golden.

3) Combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and rosemary in a medium-size mixing bowl.

4) Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest at high speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix until well incorporated. Change to low speed and add the Marsala. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in two parts and then gently fold in the pine nuts until evenly combined. Wrap the dough in plastic film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

5) To bake, preheat or reset the oven to 180°C / 350°F.

6) Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it in two. On a floured surface form each portion into logs 2.5 cm/ 1 inch in diameter. Transfer the logs to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 minutes.

7) Once cool transfer the cookie logs to a cutting board and cut them into approximately 1-cm / ½-inch slices with a serrated knife. Lay the cookies flat on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and bake for 6 – 8 minutes, until golden brown.

These cookies will keep well in a sealed container for up to 1 month. Yields 60 cookies.

I baked the cantucci using the metric measurements without incident. I also substituted white wine for the Marsala and the cookies tasted great.

Maccarones Inferrettati

This is the fourth in a series of posts on making fresh pasta. Using Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] as our guide, we examined pappardelle, toppe and cavatelli. To make these shapes we enlisted the help of some simple household pasta machines. We now put away the machines and take up the knitting needles. Maccarones inferrettati is a short, tubular pasta that is made by rolling a small piece of dough on a thin wooden stick (such as a knitting needle), a piece of metal (such as an umbrella rib or bicycle spoke) or, historically, a narrow plant reed.

Zanini De Vita categorizes maccarones inferrettati as a Sardinian version of a type of pasta called fusilli. Fusilli is a tubular form with roots in Sicily and Sardinia where the practice of shaping dough on a thin reed arrived with the Arabs. This pasta making technique spread through the south and center of Italy where a host of different fusilli variations now exist. These pastas are made with durum or tipo 00 flour (or a combination of both) with or without eggs. Some versions begin with a small piece of dough, others with a thin strip of pasta. Whatever the starting point or final shape, the shared characteristic of these tubular forms is that they are all made using a long, thin tool. Blacksmiths used to create these utensils called ferretti. Although you can still find fusilli irons for sale today, wooden knitting needles have become the tool of choice.

The key to making any number of the pastas in Zanini De Vita’s outstanding treatise is having a suitable dough recipe. The following dough is easy to roll and to work with using a wooden knitting needle. This recipe makes approximately 450 grams of dough.

• 200 grams Extra Fancy durum flour
• 100 grams tipo 00 flour
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Approximately 6 to 7 tablespoons water
• Salt

1) Weigh out each flour, mix them together and then sift the combined flour into a large mixing bowl.

2) Make a well in the flour and crack the egg into the well. Add the olive oil and salt. Beat the egg mixture with a fork and incorporate the beaten egg mixture into the flour with the fork until the eggs disappear and a crumbly mixture forms.

3) Clean the dough off of your fork and add this dough to the bowl.

4) Holding the bowl with one hand, reach into the bowl with your other hand and continue to mix the dough by hand. In small increments, add the water to incorporate all of the flour in the bowl into a rough dough that holds together.

5) Turn your dough onto a clean work surface. Wash your hands to remove any dough before kneading.

6) If necessary, lightly dust your work surface. Knead the dough for approximately 5 to 6 minutes until the dough is smooth.

7) Lightly flour the dough and wrap it in plastic. Let the dough rest at room temperature for ½ hour.

8) Unwrap the dough. Cut the dough into equal eights. Remove one piece to roll and cover the remaining pieces to prevent the dough from drying out. Make sure the pieces are not touching one another or they may stick together.

9) Make sure your work surface is clean and free of any trace of flour. (Flour takes away the tack necessary to roll the dough.) With your hands, roll the piece of dough to form a rope the thickness of a cigarette. Cut the rolled pasta into ½-inch long pieces.

10) Place a piece of pasta on your work surface. Lower the middle portion of a 2.0 mm/ 20 cm /No. 0 knitting needle down into the center of the pasta. With your fingers, gently roll the dough forward so that the pasta wraps itself around the knitting needle. (Pressing down too hard while rolling increases the chance of the pasta sticking to the knitting needle.) Gently roll the pasta back and forth on the needle until the pasta is approximately 3-inches long. Slide the pasta off the knitting needle.

11) Repeat until all of the pasta is shaped. Lightly dust the pasta with flour and spread out on a lightly floured surface. Let the pasta dry for at least one hour before cooking so that the pasta’s hollow center doesn’t collapse during cooking.

12) Cook the maccarones inferrettati in a large pot full of salty, boiling water. When you add the pasta, the boil may slow or disappear. Mix the pasta in the water to help prevent the pasta from sticking together. After the water has returned to a full boil for approximately 3 to 4 minutes, start testing the pasta. It is ready when it loses its raw taste yet is still firm to the bite. Drain the pasta into a colander and shake the colander to remove excess water. Add the pasta into your ready sauce and cook the two together for a minute or two.

Zanini De Vita writes that fusilli-type pastas, including maccarones inferrettati, are “generally served as pastasciutta with a piquant ragù especially of lamb or pork, but also with vegetable-based sauces, and plenty of grated local pecorino.” Pastasciutta is pasta served with a sauce as opposed to pasta served in a broth or soup.

Strassburgers

This is the first post in a short series on cookies. With the holiday baking season upon us, we will explore different cookies and their source cookbooks. Each cookie recipe is worth adding to your baking repertoire. First up, Strassburgers from a classic Swedish cookbook entitled Sju Sorters Kakor. Melody Favish’s English translation of this heritage cookbook is entitled Swedish Cakes and Cookies [2008].

Sju Sorters Kakor is an apt title for the original Swedish text. The literal translation of this title is “Seven Kinds of Cakes”, a reference to the traditional offerings at a Swedish coffee klatch. In bygone days, hosts aspired to present their guests with at least seven different cakes and cookies to enjoy over coffee and conversation. In its Foreword, Sju Sorters Kakor laments: “…in today’s world, there is seldom time for more than one or two kinds of cake.” Alas!

The English translation of Sju Sorters Kakor has much to recommend it. The book presents over 300 classic, homemade baked goods. I like the book’s clean layout and extensive photographs. The recipes primarily use metric measurements, but imperial measurements are also provided. (Choose one or the other, but don’t mix and match.) In a world of heavy, coffee table cookbooks, I appreciate this book’s smaller, handy size.

A favorite recipe from the book is for Strassburgers. To my eye these cookies resemble chocolate-dipped comets or shooting stars.

Oven Temp: 175°C (350°F)

• 100 g (7 tablespoons) stick margarine or butter, softened
• ½ dl (¼ cup) powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar or 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1¼ dl (2/3 cup) all-purpose flour
• 1 dl (1/3 cup) potato starch or cornstarch

Garnish:

• Jelly or powdered sugar
• Melted semi-sweet chocolate

1) Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually add the flour and starch, mixing well.

2) Using a cookie press or bag with a star tip, make mounds or lengths directly onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.

3) Bake on the center oven rack for around 10 minutes.

4) Pipe a little jelly onto each cookie or sift powdered sugar over and dip one end in melted chocolate.

This recipe makes approximately 25 cookies. Some thoughts on the recipe: pre-heat your oven. I used butter, vanilla extract and cornstarch and was quite happy with the results. If you have a cookie press, consider using it. I used a pastry bag and found the dough quite stiff and difficult (but not impossible) to pipe. Perhaps this is why I was well short of the recipe’s approximate quantity of 25 cookies. I skipped the jelly and powdered sugar. Make sure the cookies are cool before dipping (not scooping) the cookies in the melted chocolate.

Cavatelli

This is the third in a series of posts on making fresh pasta. Using Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] as our guide, we started our survey of shapes, dough and techniques by examining two pastas with Northern Italian origins: pappardelle and toppe. Both of these pastas are simple, flat noodles. Pappardelle is made with all-purpose flour while toppe is made with a tipo 00/durum flour blend. We now turn our focus from the north to the south where durum wheat is the prevalent flour for making pasta. We also transition from making flat noodles to creating sculpted pasta. A classic sculpted, durum wheat pasta from Southern Italy is cavatelli.

Historians believe that Arabs introduced the cultivation of durum wheat to Italy by way of Sicily in the 9th century. Durum thrived in Southern Italy’s soil and climate and a burgeoning dried pasta industry followed. The area around Naples became a leader in this new trade. Cities on the Amalfi Coast had a warm climate and salt air breezes that were ideal for drying pasta. The region also had access to excellent quality durum critical to making dried pastas, especially those with extruded shapes.

Zanini De Vita describes cavatelli as resembling little hats. The shape has approximately forty different names used across seven Southern Italian regions. (My favorite of these names is orecchie di prete or priest’s ears.) Not surprisingly, cavatelli also comes in a number of different shapes and sizes. One common cavatelli shape is made when a small (3/8-inch wide), pencil-thin cylinder of dough is drawn across a board with a blunt-tipped knife. A variation is created when a finger or two (or more) replace the knife.

Making cavatelli is a lot of fun, but mastering some of the shapes takes practice and time.  Although wooden boards are by far the most common work surface, once again, variations exist. Campania’s parmarieddo is made by rolling the dough across the palm of a hand instead of a board. Basilicata’s orecchie di prete is made by rolling the dough across a grooved wooden board called a cavarola.

Another common cavatelli form is machine-made and resembles a small, thin, ridged gnocchi. (Cavatelli is often generically referred to as gnocchetti.) A hard dough is rolled out and cut into strips. These strips are fed into a cavatelli maker. With a turn of a handle, the pasta is shaped and cut into cavatelli. With practice you can transform 450 grams (approximately 1 pound) of dough into cavatelli in less than 5 minutes.

Traditionally cavatelli is made only with durum flour and cold water. (Here's a link to a recipe for a flour and water dough I recently posted.) Alternative regional dough recipes exist. Here is one that I developed for my cavatelli machine, which is called a BeeBo. This dough recipe is based upon an egg and olive oil version from the Marche.

• 300 grams Giusto's Extra Fancy durum flour
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• Sea salt
• Approximately 4 tablespoons cold water

1) Weigh out the flour and sift it into a large mixing bowl.

2) Make a well in the flour and crack the eggs into the well. Add the olive oil and salt. Beat the egg mixture with a fork and incorporate the beaten egg mixture into the flour with the fork until the eggs disappear and a crumbly mixture forms.

3) Clean the dough off of your fork and add this dough to the bowl.

4) Holding the bowl with one hand, reach into the bowl with your other hand and continue to mix the dough by hand. In small increments, add as much of the cold water as you need to incorporate all of the flour in the bowl into a rough dough that holds together.

5) Turn your dough onto a clean work surface. Wash your hands to remove any dough before kneading.

6) Lightly dust your work surface. Knead the dough for a full 10 minutes.

7) Lightly flour the dough and wrap it in plastic. Let the dough rest in a refrigerator for 1½ hours.

8) Unwrap the dough and lightly dust it with flour. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to a 3/8-inch thickness. As best you can, square off the sides of the dough sheet to form a square. Cut the dough lengthwise into 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch wide strips.

9) Attach your cavatelli machine to a sturdy work surface. Feed the dough strips into the machine by cranking the machine’s handle. Perfectly formed cavatelli will magically fall out of the machine’s head onto your work surface. Lightly dust the cavatelli with flour to prevent them from sticking together and spread them out on a floured board. After feeding through all of the dough, you should have approximately 1 pound of cavatelli.

Cook the cavatelli in a large pot full of salty, boiling water. When you add the pasta, the boil may slow or disappear. Mix the pasta in the water to help prevent the pasta from sticking together. After the water has returned to a full boil for approximately 3 minutes, start testing the cavatelli. The pasta is ready when it loses its raw taste. It should be wonderfully chewy but not gummy. Drain the pasta into a colander and shake the colander to remove excess water. Add the cavatelli into your ready sauce and cook the two together for a minute or so.

Zanini De Vita writes that cavatelli is traditionally “served with meat or vegetable sauces, always made with chili and finished with a dusting of local cheese, usually cacioricotta.” Pictured is cavatelli served with a roasted cherry tomato sauce made with finely chopped basil, grated cheese and, of course, a pinch of chili pepper.

Pumpkin Tea Cake

Tartine is a warm, inviting and busy San Francisco bakery. It sells outstanding bread, pastries and café fare, such as quiche and croque-monsieurs. In my mind, it is the perfect neighborhood bakery. I would go to Tartine everyday if only I didn’t live twenty-two long miles away across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Fortunately, Tartine’s owner/bakers have written two solid cookbooks: Tartine [2006] by Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson, and Tartine Bread [2010] by Chad Robertson. An excellent recipe from Tartine is its Pumpkin Tea Cake. This cake is now a family staple enjoyed not only with tea, but also at breakfast, as a dessert and, of course, for elevenses.

Prueitt and Robertson present their bakery’s philosophy in Tartine; they are purists when it comes to ingredients and presentations: “we believe in keeping it simple. We want our cakes to look as natural as the flowers we use to decorate them, our pies and tarts and fruit desserts to change with the season, and our cookies to look like they’re made with loving hands. But most of all, we want everything we make to taste of what was used to make it.”

Tartine’s Pumpkin Tea Cake embodies the bakery’s philosophy of simplicity; it is a straightforward and delicious cake. Its crumb, as advertised in the recipe, is soft, even and moist. You can assemble this cake in less than 30 minutes.

A quick note on measurements. Prueitt and Robertson present three measuring systems: volume, avoirdupois and metric. Ounces and grams are rounded off. With care and consistency, each of these systems will yield fine results.

• All-purpose flour         12/3 cups / 8 oz / 225 g
• Baking powder         1½ tsp / 7 ml
• Baking soda         ½ tsp / 2 ml
• Ground cinnamon         1 tbsp + 2 tsp / 25 ml
• Nutmeg, freshly grated         2 tsp / 10 ml
• Ground cloves         ¼ tsp / 1 ml
• Pumpkin purée         1 cup + 2 tbsp / 9 oz / 255 g
• Vegetable oil such as safflower or sunflower         1 cup / 8 oz / 250 ml
• Sugar         11/3 cups / 9½ oz / 270 g
• Salt         ¾ tsp / 4 ml
• Large eggs         3
• Sugar for topping         2 tbsp / 30 ml

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan.

This recipe is easily mixed by a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or by hand with a whisk. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves into a mixing bowl and set aside.

In another mixing bowl, beat together the pumpkin purée, oil, sugar, and salt on medium speed or by hand until well mixed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until incorporated before adding the next egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. On low speed, add the flour mixture and beat just until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat on medium speed for 5 to 10 seconds to make a smooth batter. The batter should have the consistency of a thick purée.

Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf pan and smooth the surface with an offset spatula. Sprinkle evenly with the sugar. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, and then invert onto the rack, turn right side up, and let cool completely. Serve the cake at room temperature. It will keep, well wrapped, at room temperature for 4 days or in the refrigerator for about 1 week.

Some final notes. Prueitt and Robertson warn not to overmix the batter or you risk a coarse, tough crumb. If you decide to make your own pumpkin purée, cut your culinary pumpkin in half and scoop out its seeds. Place the pumpkin cut side down on a baking sheet and roast in a preheated 350°F oven for 1 hour. (Roasting times will vary based upon the size and variety of your pumpkin.) Purée the cooked pumpkin in a food processer. You can freeze the unused purée for future use.

Freshly puréed pumpkin (depending upon the variety) can be watery. In their recipe for Pumpkin Pie, Prueitt and Robertson advise either cooking down the purée or draining it in a cheesecloth bag overnight. Your pumpkin variety will dictate if this step is necessary or not.

I enjoy the shape created with a rectangular loaf pan. When using this pan, I reduce the cooking time to 55 minutes. Finally, I prefer this cake after it has been refrigerated. But try it both ways and see what you enjoy.

Toppe

This is the second post in a series on making fresh pasta. Using Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] as our guide, we began our survey of shapes and dough by making pappardelle with an all-purpose flour and whole-egg dough. We now turn to toppe, a Northern Italian pasta made with whole-eggs and two different types of wheat flour: durum and tipo 00. Making toppe allows us to expand our understanding of the different wheat flours available to make fresh pasta.

Toppe is a thick noodle that is 1½- to 2-inches wide and about 6-inches long. It is found in Tuscany, especially in the Casentino. Toppe literally means “patches”; its shape resembles the cloth patches the poor used to mend their clothes. What distinguishes toppe from pappardelle (in addition to the former’s added width) is that traditionally toppe is made with a blend of two wheat flours: durum and tipo 00.

Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta chronicles an incredibly diverse range of pastas. Just as remarkable as the spectrum of shapes are the different types of flour used to make pasta in Italy. The culinary encyclopedia Larousse Gastronomique defines flour as a finely ground cereal. Zanini De Vita documents pastas made with barley, buckwheat, carob, chestnut, chickpea, corn, farro, fava bean, rye and a range of wheat flours. (One of these wheat flours is made of burnt wheat or grano arso. The very poor collected bits of burnt wheat after a farmer had threshed, gleaned and, finally, burned a field to fertilize the land. The poor milled this burnt wheat and added it to extend flour used to make pasta.)

Durum

There are thousands of different wheat varieties. In the United States, wheat is divided into six classes: hard red winter; hard red spring; hard white; soft red winter; soft white; and durum. Hard wheat contains more gluten-producing proteins than soft wheat. This makes hard wheat well suited to breads and pasta where the additional protein allows greater elasticity. Soft wheat is used in cakes, biscuits and pastries where the lack of protein results in tender baked goods. Durum is the hardest wheat. Durum’s high protein allows an elasticity that aids the production of extruded, shaped pastas. Fine dried pastas are made with durum wheat.

The words durum and semolina are often used interchangeably. Semolina is made from durum wheat. Semolina flour often is fairly course, but finer grinds of semolina are available. Course semolina creates a gritty texture in pasta that I do not enjoy. I use a finely ground durum (designated as Extra Fancy) produced by Giusto's.

One of the lovely qualities of durum flour is its amber color. Sometimes this color is vibrant, other times it is subtle. When durum is combined with high-quality eggs, the resulting pasta can be a vivid yellow.

Tipo 00

Tipo means “type” in Italian and 00 signifies the level of refinement. The more refined the flour (i.e., the more of the bran and germ removed during production) the lower the rating. Tipo 00 is the most highly refined Italian grade of flour. Tipo 00 flour is snow white in color. As the grades increase from tipo 00 to tipo 0, 1, 2 and, finally, farina integrate, the flour becomes darker and courser. (Farina integrate is made from the entire wheat grain.) Because Italy’s flours are graded by their refinement, the protein levels of tipo 00 flour can vary. (Some mills sell different tipo 00 flours with varying protein levels.) In general, if flour is designated as grano tenero it will be softer than flour designated as grano duro, which will be harder.

The Encyclopedia of Pasta is full of examples where different flours are blended together to make dough. These traditional pastas (as well as their sauces) are born of local products, created by what was on-hand in the larder, the garden, the local field and trees. In her preface, Zanini De Vita writes that the Encyclopedia of Pasta is a record of “what ordinary people did and do and have always done with available recourses.” With repetition the seeds of a tradition sprout, are nurtured and, frequently, further refined as dishes are handed down from one generation to the next. Zanini De Vita observes: “In reality, dishes are almost always the fruit of slow transformations over time and space, dictated by the need to perfect drying techniques or cooking systems, or even simply to obtain a tastier or more visually appealing result.”

• 150 grams Extra Fancy durum flour
• 150 grams tipo 00 flour
• 3 large eggs

The steps to make toppe are similar to those set out in our examination of pappardelle. The only differences are: (1) mix the durum and tipo 00 flour together before sifting the flour; and (2) after rolling the dough through setting No. 6 (or your pasta machine’s penultimate setting), cut the sheet with a knife into pieces that are 1½- to 2-inches wide and about 6-inches long.

Traditionally toppe is served with Tuscan olive oil, pepper and local pecorino cheese. Zanini De Vita reports that it is also accompanied with various tomato sauces. If you make toppe, you see that combining durum with a soft flour prevents an extra wide noodle from tearing when it is cooked and eaten. Even though the pasta is tender, it still retains a nice bite. Durum flour also adds a beautiful color to this unique, regional pasta.

Pappardelle

This is the first in a series of posts on making fresh pasta. Using Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] as our guide, we will explore different pasta shapes, dough and techniques. Our survey begins with pappardelle made with an all-purpose flour and whole-egg dough. If you decide to learn how to make just one pasta dough, this dough is a good choice. Once it is mastered you are ready to make a wide range of shaped and flat pastas such as farfalle, garganelli, maltagliati and tagliatelle, and the exterior of stuffed pastas like cannelloni, marubini, ravioli and tortelli. But before we begin, a quick aside.

A reoccurring theme discussed during our examination will be the relationship among dough, shapes and sauces. For some these relationships are near sacred; they will only use a certain sauce with a specific shape of pasta made with particular dough. Often there is a good deal of sense in how these specific pairings evolved; traditional shapes frequently develop because they expertly carry and compliment a sauce made with local ingredients. Although I believe it is interesting to understand these pairings, I present them as guidelines and not rules. With food and wine, one should not have to defend personal preferences.

Pappardelle is one of the wider of the flat pastas. Its roots are in Northern and central Italy. The pasta’s width (usually around 1-inch) and its relative thickness lend itself to a more substantial sauce such as a ragù made of meat or game. Zanini De Vita reports that homemade pappardelle was originally made with wheat flour and water; now eggs commonly replace water.

Pappardelle is a good place to begin our pasta survey for a number of reasons. This pasta is traditionally made with all-purpose flour, the most readily available of the flours that we will explore. All-purpose flour is a blend of hard and soft flours containing different levels of protein and starch. “Harder” flour contains more protein and less starch than “softer” flour. Knowing whether your flour is hard or soft suggests what you can do with your dough. All-purpose flour is blended to be somewhere in the middle between a hard and soft flour. Its “all-purpose” designation reflects its versatility. The exact blend and protein level of all-purpose flour varies from mill to mill. In the United States all-purpose flour has a range of 9 to 12 percent protein.

Another reason to begin our survey with pappardelle is that its all-purpose flour and whole-egg dough is easy to make. The dough is simple to knead and forgiving. Eggs supply the necessary liquid to bind the flour (eggs are approximately 75% water) and create a silky yet firm texture. High-quality eggs add a beautiful yellow-orange color to pasta.

Finally, making pappardelle allows us to introduce a versatile pasta machine that rolls and cuts dough. If you want to invest in a single piece of equipment to help you make fresh pasta, this is it. My machine has metal rollers that adjust to create a fine ribbon of pasta up to 6-inches wide. There are a number of different brands of machines available. I use a Marcato Atlas 150 that is over 20 years old. It is a wonderful, trouble free machine. Although you certainly can learn how to roll out fresh pasta by hand with a rolling pin, a pasta machine makes easy work of a challenging skill. When discussing how to roll the dough, I will reference the roller settings on my Atlas. (No. 1 is the widest setting; No. 2 is slightly thinner; and No. 7 is the thinnest setting.)

One last point before we begin in earnest. A number of variables can affect pasta dough such as temperature, humidity and the variations in flour, eggs and other ingredients. This is why you will likely need to slightly adjust the amount of your ingredients each time you make pasta. When working the dough you may need to add a bit more flour as you knead; the next time you make pasta, you may find that you need more liquid to create your dough. The goal is a firm yet supple dough that is neither wet nor sticky. You will achieve greater consistency from batch to batch if you use the same mill’s flour and measure your ingredients by weight rather than by volume. But even then, expect variations in how the dough responds. Overtime you will develop a feel for making dough and instinctively know when and how to compensate. This is part of the craft of making fresh pasta.

• 400 grams all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs

1) Weigh out the flour and sift it into a large mixing bowl.

2) Make a well in the flour and crack the eggs into the well. Beat the eggs with a fork and incorporate the beaten eggs into the flour with the fork until the eggs disappear and a crumbly mixture forms.

3) Clean the dough off your fork and add the dough to the mixture.

4) Holding the bowl with one hand, reach into the bowl with your other hand and continue to mix the dough by hand. The goal is to incorporate all of the flour in the bowl into a rough dough that holds together. If this mixture is too dry and will not come together, add a quick spritz or two of water from a spray bottle.

5) Turn your dough onto a clean work surface. Wash your hands to remove any dough before kneading.

6) Lightly dust your work surface. Begin to knead the dough ball by forcefully pushing it down and away from you with your palm’s heel. Fold the dough back over itself toward you. Slightly turn the dough counterclockwise, and knead again. The dough may become slightly tacky at the outset depending upon how the flour and eggs are behaving. If the dough sticks to your work surface or hands, lightly dust your work area with flour. When you resume kneading, this flour will work into the dough. Be careful not to add too much flour; you do not want the dough to become dry and stiff. As you continue kneading, a slightly tacky dough will become elastic and smooth. Knead for a full 10 minutes.

7) Lightly flour the dough and wrap it in plastic. Let the dough rest at room temperature for 45 minutes to 1 hour. During this time the dough continues to absorb and distribute its moisture.

8) Unwrap the dough and lightly dust it with flour. Cut the dough into equal quarters. Remove one piece to roll and cover the remaining pieces to prevent the dough from drying out. Make sure the pieces are not touching one another or they may stick together.

9) Attach your pasta machine to a steady work surface and set the rollers to their widest setting; on my Atlas this is No. 1. Lightly flour the cut surfaces of the dough and then flatten it with your palm so as to be thin enough (approximately ½-inch) to feed through the two rollers. Place the flattened dough between and against the two rollers and turn the roller handle. The rollers will grab and flatten the dough into a strip.

10) Lightly dust the dough strip. Visually divide the length of the dough into thirds. Fold the left third over the center third followed by the right third over the center. The width is the same but the dough is now thicker. Using the tips of your fingers, push down to compress the dough to approximately ½-inch. Feed the dimpled dough through the rollers, lightly dust the dough and fold it into thirds again. Compress with fingers and feed the dimpled dough through the rollers a third time.

11) Set the rollers to the next, slightly thinner setting (No. 2). Feed the dough through, lightly dust with flour, fold into thirds, and compress. Repeat this process twice more at this setting. Set the rollers to the next, slightly thinner setting (No. 3) and repeat the process (feed, dust, fold, compress) three more times.

12) Set the rollers to the next thinnest setting (No. 4). For this setting and the next two, the process slightly changes—there is no need to fold the dough into thirds and compress it with your fingers. Just feed the dough through, lightly dust, adjust the rollers to the next thinnest setting (No. 5), and feed the dough through again. Each time the dough will become thinner and longer (but, on my Atlas, no wider than 6-inches). Pappardelle is a thick noodle; stop rolling after the dough has passed through the pasta machine’s penultimate roller setting (No. 6).

13) Lightly dust both sides of the dough. Using a sharp knife cut the dough into approximately 6-inch lengths. Using a fluted pastry wheel, cut the dough into noodles that are 1-inch wide. Light toss the pappardelle with flour and place on a tea towel. Cover with another towel.

14) Repeat the above procedure with the three remaining pieces of dough. When complete, you should have slightly over 1 pound of pappardelle.

Cook the pappardelle in a large pot full of salty, boiling water. When you add the pasta, the boil may slow or disappear. Mix the pasta in the water to help prevent the pasta from sticking together. After the water has returned to a full boil for approximately 3 minutes, start testing the pappardelle. The pasta is ready when it loses its raw taste yet is still firm to the bite. Drain the pasta into a colander and shake the colander to remove excess water. Add the pasta into your ready sauce and cook the two together for a minute or so.

Pappardelle will support a range of sauces but excels when carrying a substantial sauce, such as a ragù made of meat or game. For a classic pairing consider serving pappardelle with a chicken liver sauce.