Corzetti Stampati

Last year I shared a recipe for stracenate, a flat, rectangular-shaped pasta from Southern Italy.  Stracenate has a unique decorative pattern created by pressing pieces of pasta onto a carved wooden board called a cavarola. Let’s now move up the Italian Peninsula to explore a similarly distinctive regional pasta most closely associated with Liguria. Corzetti stampati’s large, coin-like shape is made by first cutting a circle out of a sheet of pasta and then embossing the disc with an ingenious wooden tool aptly called a corzetti stamp.

Research suggests fingers rather than wooden stamps indented the earliest version of corzetti, which dates back to the thirteenth century. A similar finger-pressed (and a factory-made) shape survives to this day and still goes by the name corzetti without the stampati qualifier; it resembles, to my eye, a stylized figure 8.

By the Italian Renaissance, court pasta makers used carved wooden stamps to create corzetti stampati. Oretta Zanini De Vita writes in her Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] that in addition to heraldry, early corzetti stamps “bore a little stylized cross…other molds were incised with geometric and vegetal motifs, or with references to the celebration for which they were made.”

Today corzetti stampati appears to be enjoying a modest renaissance. Until recently recipes to make fresh corzetti stampati were few and far between. Why the increase in popularity? The Internet deserves some credit. Ten or more years ago locating a corzetti stamp in the United States was about as easy as finding a cavarola (i.e., it wasn’t). Now a Google search turns up a handful of websites that sell corzetti stamps. Some of the most handsome stamps currently available come from Pietro Picetti (here), whose workshop is located in La Spezia, Liguria.

The dough recipes I’ve collected over the years to make fresh corzetti stampati range from using a single egg to incorporating a lot of egg yolks. Which version you choose is a matter of taste and preference. The following recipe, which serves 4, is more rich than lean.

• 220 grams Giusto’s Organic Baker’s Choice Unbleached Flour
• 12 egg yolks from large eggs

Follow the instructions from my pappardelle post (here) with the following differences: use egg yolks in place of whole eggs and knead the dough for at least 20 to 30 minutes, dusting with flour as necessary. When rolling the pasta aim for a finished sheet that is approximately 2mm thick.

Lightly flour both sides of your finshed pasta sheet. Using the concave portion of the corzetti stamp’s base, cut out discs from the pasta sheet. Flour the corzetti stamp’s flat, carved surfaces. Place a pasta disc between these two surfaces and firmly press the handle and base together to coin the disc. Repeat with remaining discs.

Place the newly minted corzetti stampati on a baking sheet coated with course semolina flour. Allow the pasta to rest for approximately 1 hour before cooking. This brief drying period helps the pasta to retain its decorative pattern when cooked. Boil in salted water (approximating the taste of seawater) until the corzetti stampati are done; cooking time will vary based upon the pasta’s thickness and dryness.

To accentuate its Ligurian lineage, consider serving corzetti stampati with a basil pesto (adding green beans to the dish if you like). If you want to try another classic combination, finish the cooked coins in a butter sauce containing fresh marjoram, pine nuts and Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Stracenate

A cavarola is a carved wooden board used to make pasta. In Basilicata, a deeply ridged cavatelli called orecchie di prete is made by rolling a small cylinder of dough across a cavarola. The pasta’s plump, lobed shape resembles its namesake, priest’s ears. Head east into Puglia and you will find a completely different shape: a rectangular pasta that is made by pressing a flat piece of dough into a cavarola. The resulting shape is called stracenate.

Giuliano Bugialli in Bugialli on Pasta [1988] describes stracenate (also called stracnar) as “attractive pasta rectangles, which are patterned in herringbone with a suggestive antique board called a cavarola….” Bugialli continues: “some semolina is mixed in with white flour, but the pasta is rich with egg. This is another of those great old pastas that must be made manually and is disappearing, but let us work to revive it.”

That stracenate risks disappearing is lamentable. It is a handsome, ridged pasta that holds a range of sauces well. It is also one of the few traditional Southern Italian pastas made with a combination of wheat flours and eggs (as opposed to only durum-wheat flour and water). Yet Bugialli’s exhortation hints at a possible reason for stracenate’s possible demise. Although not difficult to make, stracenate takes a good deal of time. First you make a dough that you roll out to create a thin sheet of pasta; next you hand cut out tens of small rectangles; and finally, you individually press each piece of pasta onto a cavarola.

And then there is the cavarola. Before the Internet opened up the world, finding a cavarola in the United States (and likely elsewhere) was difficult. Now there are websites in the United States and abroad that sell rare artisan pasta tools like cavarola boards, corzetti stamps and garganelli combs.

Here is the dough recipe that I use to make approximately 1 pound of stracenate. Variables such as temperature, humidity and variations in flour and eggs can affect pasta dough. You may need to slightly adjust the amount of flour or perhaps add a bit of water to correct your dough.

• 200 grams Caputo tipo 00 flour
• 100 grams Giusto’s Extra Fancy durum flour
• 4 large eggs
• Salt

Making stracenate is similar to making pappardelle with the following differences: (1) mix the durum and tipo 00 flour together before sifting the flour; and (2) after rolling the dough through setting No. 6 (the penultimate setting on an Atlas 150), cut the sheet with a knife or fluted pastry wheel into rectangular pieces that are approximately 1-inch wide and 2¼-inches long. With the tips of your fingers or the heel of your palm, press each piece of pasta onto a cavarola to create the pasta’s distinctive herringbone pattern. Place the stracenate on baking sheets coated with course semolina flour to rest for approximately 1 hour before cooking. This brief drying period helps the pasta to retain its decorative pattern when cooked.

No doubt to Mr. Bugialli’s delight there is evidence that stracenate is making a comeback. The 2011 English translation of Monica Sartoni Cesari’s Italy Dish by Dish [2005] has the following entry in its section on Puglia and Basilicata for stracenate: “It’s…the name of [a] pasta shape that’s made with flour, lardo and water. The shapes are made by rolling rectangular pieces of dough using a ridged rectangular wooden utensil that leaves a pattern on the pasta.” Stracenate’s inclusion in this excellent resource guide bodes well for the pasta’s future.

I have served stracenate with a number of different sauces. A favorite combination is stracenate with a pork sugo made with dry-farmed tomatoes. Bugialli on Pasta pairs stracenate with a classic Southern Italian sauce of cherry tomatoes, anchovies and toasted bread crumbs.