Alby_da_Wolf said:
The most basic and widespread home recipe for the dough for egg pasta, used for tagliatelle, tagliolini, tortellini, cappelletti, some noodles and other kinds of plain or filled pasta, should be 12 fresh eggs for 1kg flour. The industry is allowed to use down to just a minimum 4 eggs for 1kg flour, and besides being mandatory in Italy, this actually forces them to use durum wheat semolina as flour to allow the pasta to stay "al dente" (firm, the only acceptable way to cook pasta in Italy, unless it's added to vegetable and legumes soups, where longer cooking can be tolerated). Using 12 eggs, pasta will stay "al dente" even using plain wheat flour, that should be the choice for traditional northern Italian recipes, as durum wheat was once used only in central and southern Italy. Durum wheat instead is really mandatory, not only by law, for water dough Italian pasta, except potato gnocchi, where potato is the main ingredient, though (and excessive use of wheat flour to keep the dough together will produce gnocchi that "strozzano", literally that "choke", unless they are really small, not so dramatic actually, it's a way to say they'll be difficult to swallow) . Kneading 12 eggs dough is quite a tough job! |
I got to get the recipe my great aunt uses for her homemade noodles/gnocchi. She's 85 years old and still makes homemade noodles/gnocchi/ravioli, as well as pizzelles and other cookies.
