TAGLIATELLE “alla romagnola” is a typical dish of the area of Ravenna. It is one of the most representative dishes of hand-made pasta tradition, as the dough is still hand-rolled with the rolling pin. Today, there are many tools that could make it easier to roll it, but the wood of the rolling pin allows the pasta to be rougher and to better blend with the sauce.
Once dressed with meat or ham leftovers, today they are accompanied by gourmet sauces, such as ragù and Parmesan, bladder campion, mushrooms or with pine nuts from the pine woods of Ravenna. The thickness of the tagliatelle varies according to the dressing – they are thicker when intended for a vegetable dressing, thinner for meat or fish sauces. In the area of Ravenna, sometimes they are also “green”, with an addition of spinach in the dough.
According to tradition, their name comes from the cut (“taglio”) that you have to make to get this kind of pasta. In order to make tagliatelle, you have to fold the rolled dough and cut it in long strips. Tagliatelle have a long-time tradition – they are mentioned by Horace in the I century BC, by Cristoforo di Messisbugo in the 16th century and by Pellegrino Artusi at the end of the 19th century.
TAGLIATELLE RECIPE
Recipe by chef Raffaele Parisi
Ingredients for 4 people
FOR THE PASTA:
- 4 eggs;
- 400 grams of flour;
- some semolina flour;
- a pinch of salt.
FOR THE MEAT SAUCE:
- beef and pork meat;
- celery, onion and carrot for the mirepoix;
- oil;
- red wine;
- tomato paste.
Mix eggs, flour and a pinch of salt until the dough is uniform. Cover it with a cloth and leave it to rest for about 20 minutes. Roll it with a rolling pin as thinly as possible (about 1,5 mm).
Leave the rolled dough to rest for about 40 minutes, so that it dries a little bit. When it gets rough, fold it into three parts and cut it into strips.
We suggest you prepare the meat sauce before the tagliatelle, as the preparation of the meat sauce needs to be cooked slowly for various hours. Fry celery, onion and carrot. Then add the mixture of meat and cook it for almost one hour. Douse with the red wine, then add the tomato paste and some water. Let simmer for at least 3 hours.
Cook the pasta in salted boiling water and drain it al dente. Dress the tagliatelle with the meat sauce and serve them very hot.
