Duck Egg Pasta

Earlier this week, my local butcher, Marin Sun Farms in Oakland, California, ran out of chicken eggs, but the shop had cartons of duck eggs. So, when life gives you duck eggs, make duck egg pasta. Each of the duck eggs weighed about 85 grams. For comparison, the United States Department of Agriculture grades a chicken egg weighing between 57 and 64 grams as large.

Although I have a few bigoli recipes that use duck eggs, I opted to follow an egg noodle recipe in SPQR [2012] by Shelley Lindgren and Matthew Accarrino with Kate Leahy. One of the best pasta cookbooks in my collection, SPQR lists ingredients by weight and volume. This made using the duck eggs a snap. Accarrino's egg noodle recipe calls for 250 grams 00 flour for 220 grams egg yolks (from 11 chicken eggs) and 5 grams of extra virgin olive oil. I weighed out the duck egg yolks and 7 yolks weighted 242 grams. I removed 22 grams of the yolks and I was ready to make my dough. Here is Accarrino’s recipe for egg noodles.

250 grams / scant 2 cups 00 flour

2 grams / ½ teaspoon kosher salt

220 grams / 11 egg yolks

5 grams / 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

To make the egg noodles: In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the flour and salt. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and olive oil. With the mixer running on low speed, drizzle in the egg-oil mixture. Mix the dough for 2 to 3 minutes, then turn onto the counter and knead by hand for several minutes; it should look bright yellow and feel firm. Flatten the dough into a rectangle, wrap in plastic wrap and leave on the counter for 30 minutes to soften and hydrate.

I divided my duck egg dough, which weighed about 463 grams, into two pieces; I used half the dough to make tagliarini and the other half to make corzetti stampati. SPQR’s egg noodle recipe worked well for both shapes. The duck egg pasta had a deep yellow color and a firm bite that characterizes egg yolk noodles. As for flavor, the pasta tasted rich but not appreciably different than noodles made with chicken egg yolks.

Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds

The University of California Press recently republished Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds – Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio (2013) by the great Italian food historian Oretta Zanini De Vita and translated by Maureen B. Fant. This book, originally published in 1994 in both English and Italian by Alphabyte Books, explores the Eternal City and its region’s gastronomic history and character. Although not cookbooks, both the original and the reworked and expanded editions include traditional regional recipes—nearly 250 recipes in the latest version—that compliment the author’s research. Like Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta (2009), Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds will sate both scholars and lay readers interested in the food of Rome.

In Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds, Zanini De Vita explores the social history and geography that define cucina romanesca. Chapters include: The Agrarian Landscape of the Campagna Romana; The Tiber and Fish in Popular Cooking; Water and Aqueducts; Mills on the Tiber: Bread and Pasta in Rome; The Jewish Kitchen of the Roman Ghetto; The Papal Table; Hollywood on the Tiber; and Coastal Lazio and the Sea. The original version of the work interspersed recipes throughout its chapters; the revised edition collects all of the recipes in the book’s second half. These recipes fall into six categories: Primi piatti (First Courses); Secondi piatti (Main Dishes); Verdure e legumi (Vegetables and Legumes); Sfizi (Savories); Condimenti (Sauces and Condiments); and Dolci (Sweets).

Regular readers of A Serious Bunburyist might expect me to dive right into Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds’ pasta offerings, but first permit me to briefly digress. One of the many pleasures of Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds is Fant’s introduction to the book’s recipes entitled Thoughts on the Interpretation of Italian Recipes. As someone new to translating, I found her two-page discourse useful and entertaining. Consider this excerpt:

The verbs of Italian recipes can be delightful—you accommodate the fish in a pan, you moisten or bathe with wine—but, after a flirtation with this colorful vocabulary, I reverted to the prosaic “put” and “add.” I felt enough was being left to the imagination without having to worry about making the fish comfortable.

So now on to the pasta. Zanini De Vita supplies 28 recipes. Although all are traditional, none of these recipes would feel terribly out of place on today’s modern table. That said, if you want to make Rigatoni con la “pajata” (Rigatoni with Veal Intestines) you might have some trouble finding pajata, the “Roman name for the first section of the intestine of the milk-fed calf, used with its chyme.” Instead, you might consider another straightforward and simple recipe. One of my favorites is Spaghetti al pomodoro con le alici (Spaghetti with Tomatoes and Anchovies). This recipe serves 4.

2 garlic cloves

¾-inch (2-cm) piece dried chile

4 tablespoons intensely fruity extra-virgin olive oil

4 salt-packed anchovies

9 ounces (250 g) canned tomatoes

14 ounces (400 g) spaghetti

Crush the garlic cloves and put them in a skillet with the chile and oil. Sauté over medium heat for a couple of minutes. Add the anchovies and cook until they are completely dissolved. Now add the tomatoes and cook the sauce over a lively flame for about 20 minutes, mashing the tomatoes with a folk as needed to break them up. Discard the garlic and chile.

Drop the spaghetti into about 4 quarts (4 liters) boiling salted water. When al dente, drain, transfer to a warmed serving bowl, and toss with the sauce. Serve immediately.

In addition to its recipes, Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds also contains an excellent Glossary of Terms and Ingredients. Its anchovy entry explains how to prepare the salt-packed version for cooking: “rinse off all the salt and divide the fish (which will be headless) into two fillets, discarding the skeleton.” No need to be afraid of salt-packed anchovies ever again.

Warm thanks to the University of California Press for continuing to present Oretta Zanini De Vita’s work to an appreciative English-speaking audience. Happily, the Press plans to follow up Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds with the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Italian Pasta Sauces. I can scarcely recall the last time I heard such exciting news!

Gramigna al Ragù di Salsiccia

My February 2013 post (here) covers making fresh gramigna in a torchio pasta press. Home kitchens, restaurants and cookbooks typically pair the sprout-like shaped gramigna with a sausage ragù. I listed a number of gramigna recipes from various sources including a recipe from Trattoria da Gianni a la Vécia Bulàgna in Bologna that Slow Food Editore published in its Italian-language cookbook entitled La Pasta [2010]. Of the sauces that I have tried with gramigna, this version remains one of my favorites. The simple ragù, although rich, tastes bright and not heavy. Here’s my translation of Gramigna al Ragù di Salsiccia from La Pasta.

Time to prepare and cook: 1¼ hours

Serves: 6

800 grams gramigna

600 grams pork sausage

1 small carrot

½ onion

½ celery rib

500 grams tomatoes, peeled

a glass of dry white wine

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

extra virgin olive oil

salt

Prepare a battuto with onion, celery and carrot and lightly brown in a frying pan with a little oil. In the meantime, skin the sausage, break it up in the pan, brown it for a few minutes over medium heat, mixing to combine the ingredients and pour in the wine.

Once the wine has evaporated, purée the tomatoes, pour them into the pan and simmer over low heat, covered, for one hour, checking that the sauce doesn’t get too dry and adding a little water, if necessary. Taste the sauce and season with salt.

Boil the gramigna in a large pot filled with salted water for 5 to 6 minutes, draining when al dente. Coat with the sauce and finish with a generous grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Notes

As used in the above recipe, a battuto is a finely diced mixture of vegetables that, once cooked, become the flavor-base of countless Italian soups, stews and sauces. In her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking [1992], the great Marcella Hazan writes: “At one time, the nearly invariable components of a battuto were lard, parsley, and onion, all chopped very fine.” Today, more often than not, a recipe calling for a battuto dispenses with the lard and cooks the chopped vegetables in olive oil or butter. Hazan continues: “When a battuto is sautéed in a pot or skillet until the onion becomes translucent and the garlic, if any, become colored a pale gold, it turns into a soffritto.”

When I make Gramigna al Ragù di Salsiccia, I cook the vegetables for about 10 to 15 minutes over medium-low heat. After creating the soffritto, I turn the heat up to medium to brown the crumbled sausage. I use a dry Orvieto, about 200 ml or so, to deglaze the pan.

Finally, the La Pasta recipe suggests cooking the gramigna for about 5 to 6 minutes. That time frame sounds a little too long to me. Taste the pasta as you go. I typically cook fresh gramigna for about 3 minutes after the pasta water has returned to a boil.