{"id":3452,"date":"2017-03-15T14:03:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T13:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.wordpress.com\/?p=3452"},"modified":"2020-09-12T10:59:55","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T08:59:55","slug":"tajarin-a-k-a-tagliatelle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/?p=3452","title":{"rendered":"Tajarin a.k.a Tagliatelle\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"img_0716\"\"\"<\/a>Everyone knows that pasta is a very important part of Italian cuisine and most people love it! \u00a0I actually had a tour member complain one time that she was getting too much pasta; once, every other day. \u00a0My Italian friends just shook their heads when they heard that…is that even possible? \u00a0While we don’t eat pasta every day at home, we easily eat it three or four times a week alternating with soup or risotto. \u00a0It’s quick, easy, healthy and tasty even when you don’t sauce it. \u00a0Italian fast food is pasta asciutta,\u00a0<\/em>dry pasta, dressed with extra virgin olive oil and Reggiano Parmigiano<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em>Add a salad or some other side of vegetables and you have a great meal in less that 30 minutes. \u00a0When I want to do something special for my boys, I make Tajarin, \u00a0Piemontese for<\/em>\u00a0tagliatelle.
\nOn a few of the tours that I guide we have hands on cooking classes which usually entail making some sort of pasta. \u00a0Invariably someone asks me if I actually make my own pasta at home and my answer is yes! \u00a0I manage to make plain, fresh pasta a few times every year and Mauro and I team up to make ravioli a couple of times. \u00a0My goal with this post is not to give you a step by step on how to make fresh pasta, but to encourage you to just do it! \u00a0It really takes less time than you think it will. \u00a0Today’s pasta was made in one hour and twenty minutes from start to finish, which includes cleaning up.
\nMaking pasta is usually a weekend activity for me so why am I doing it on a Wednesday? First, because it’s a Wednesday and I have time. \u00a0You know why if you’ve been following my blog. The second reason is that two sets of neighbors just gave me fresh eggs. \u00a0I have eggs and since I am leaving for a tour of Rome on Saturday I need to use them now. \u00a0The third reason is that I thought it would me a nice treat for my boys, good eaters that they are. \u00a0They will be very happy with mamma tonight!
\nIf you have never made fresh\u00a0egg pasta before, don’t worry, It is easy! \u00a0There are two ingredients, flour and eggs. \u00a0I always use the proportions given by Marcella Hazen in one of my favorite Italian cookbooks, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking<\/a>. \u00a0A\u00a0<\/strong>gift from my dad,\u00a0<\/b>I have had this book for more years than I have been in Italy.
\n1 cup of flour and 2 eggs makes a standard portion for 3 people.
\nThe second thing that is useful is a little hand cranked pasta machine. \u00a0Although you can use a rolling pin and knife fairly easily, this is a time saver. \u00a0We had this Atlas machine<\/a>\u00a0growing up which aside from the brand, is identical to the machine we inherited from Mauro’s mom, Maria.
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“Homemade pasta is Fresh and Genuine.”<\/p><\/div>
\n 
\nThe genuine in this case means you know what’s in it. \u00a0Our box is a little worn but this machine is brilliant and has cranked out a lot of pasta, literally, for almost 50 years!\u00a0 Today I used 3 cups of flour and 6 eggs. \u00a0While kneading, I probably added almost one extra cup of flour a bit at a time. \u00a0It depends on how humid it is and how big your eggs are…you want your dough to be soft but not sticky. \u00a0It was humid today and I was very liberal with the flour, making sure my pasta sheets were well floured as I rolled them out. You can check out how my pasta progressed in the following pictures but if you want a step by step recipe you are going to have to consult Google. \u00a0Remember, my point today is that you shouldn’t be intimidated by pasta making, it didn’t take that long!<\/strong>
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My flour volcano is erupting!<\/p><\/div>
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Working the dough with a fork but now it’s time to get my hands dirty.<\/p><\/div>
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Almost there after 7 minutes..3 more minutes and it will be perfect.<\/p><\/div>
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Ready to roll, I cut off small pieces and keep the rest of the dough wrapped in a clean dish towel.<\/p><\/div>
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Rolling and cutting…<\/p><\/div>
\nOnce I have made my pasta I just leave it spread out on a tablecloth to dry for a few hours. If you make extra, once it’s dried, (6 hours) you can put it on a tray and freeze it but I never make that much. \u00a0 This 6 egg batch will feed us twice but if I use my pasta within a few days I can simply keep it in the fridge.
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Drying out…<\/p><\/div>
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Cleaning up…the machine does not get washed, just brushed!<\/p><\/div>
\nThe next big step is deciding how you want to dress your pasta. \u00a0If you do nothing more than butter or oil and fresh Parmesan<\/a> it will be delicious. \u00a0I also thought about brown butter and sage… but since I went to all the work of making pasta, I decided a sauce was in order. \u00a0 Basic tomato or a meat sauce? \u00a0I have some swordfish in the freezer and my homemade canned sauce in the cantina<\/em> so I whipped up a Swordfish Ragu. \u00a0I \u00a0am going to roughly explain how I made my sauce since I rarely follow recipes while doing my everyday cooking and just throw things in the pot. \u00a0If you want a real recipe, as I said before with the pasta, ask Google. \u00a0When I have an idea in my head I will often look at five or six different versions of the same thing and come up with my own recipe based on how much time I have or whether it requires a trip to the store. \u00a0 I happened to have right ingredients on hand today and it only took me about 10 minutes of active prep time and 30 minutes of simmering.
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Still raw…the base for my sauce before adding the tomato.<\/p><\/div>
\nI made a base by mincing 2 shallots, 1 clove of garlic and a medium sized carrot. \u00a0Put enough extra virgin olive oil<\/a> to cover the bottom of a medium size \u00a0pot and saute for 5 minutes. At this point I added about 8 oz. of swordfish cut into small cubes, a 1\/2 cup of white wine, 2 Tbls. of rinsed, chopped salted capers<\/a> and a basic tomato sauce. \u00a0Season with salt and pepper and simmer for 30 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.
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Simmering away…<\/p><\/div>
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Dry enough and ready to cook.<\/p><\/div>
\nOnce you have everything ready all that is left to do is cook your pasta. Once you have a big pot of salted water boiling the Tajarin\u00a0<\/em>cook in 4\/5 minutes. \u00a0Toss them with your sauce and enjoy…
\nSo here’s where I got distracted…I was going to take a picture of my pasta once it was dressed and ready to eat but in addition to my hungry family hovering around me in the kitchen I was also trying to deal with the plumber arriving shortly, (one of our toilets broke) and the electrician on the phone, (our driveway gate broke). Everything came together, or not, at the same time so the pasta was put on the table and mostly devoured and the picture was forgotten. \u00a0I guess you are going to have to make it for yourself to see how it comes out!
\nBuon Appetito!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows that pasta is a very important part of Italian cuisine and most people love it! \u00a0I actually had a tour member complain one time that she was getting too much pasta; once, every other day. \u00a0My Italian friends just shook their heads when they heard that…is that even possible? \u00a0While we don’t eat … Continue reading Tajarin a.k.a Tagliatelle\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5472,"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions\/5472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisasdolceitalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}