Fresh Tagliolini Food

FRESH TAGLIERINI PASTA

Steps:

• Make dough:
• Pulse together all ingredients except additional flour in a food processor until mixture just begins to form a ball. Knead dough on a work surface, incorporating additional flour as necessary, until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Divide dough into 4 pieces and keep each wrapped in plastic wrap until ready to roll out.
• Roll out dough:
• Set smooth rollers of a pasta machine at widest setting. Flatten 1 piece of dough into a rectangle and feed through rollers. Fold in half and feed through rollers 8 or 9 more times to continue kneading, folding in half each time and dusting with flour as necessary to prevent sticking.
• Cut pasta:
• Turn dial to next narrower setting and feed dough through rollers without folding. Continue to feed dough through, without folding, making space between rollers narrower each time until narrowest setting is reached. Halve sheet crosswise and arrange on a dry kitchen towel, letting pasta hang over edge of work surface. Roll out remaining dough in same manner.
• Attach ribbon-pasta cutters to pasta machine and attach handle to 1/8-inch-wide cutter. Line a tray with a dry kitchen towel. Feed first rolled-out pasta sheet, which will have dried slightly but should still be flexible, through cutter and toss with some flour. Form pasta loosely into a nest and arrange on kitchen-towel-lined tray. Make more taglierini with remaining dough. Cover taglierini with plastic wrap until ready to use.

TAGLIOLINI CON TARTUFO: TAGLIOLINI WITH TRUFFLES

Steps:

• In a pot, cook the fresh tagliolini in salted boiling water. Approximately 1 minute before the pasta is 'al dente', remove the pasta from the pot and drain, saving some pasta water.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan, and add the drained pasta along with a little pasta water. If the pasta appears to be too dry, add more pasta water. Add the Parmigiano cheese, grated truffles and cook everything together for a minute, so that the sauce thickens. Transfer the pasta to a warm plate and add a sprinkle of truffle shavings.

TAGLIOLINI WITH SALSA CRUDA AND RICOTTA SALATA

Steps:

• In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes with a pinch of salt. Let the tomatoes sit while you prep the rest of the ingredients. This will help draw out some excess moisture from the tomatoes that will help create the sauce. Add the onions, zucchini, asparagus, basil, oregano, garlic, red pepper, olive oil and vinegar and season generously with salt; taste to make sure it's delicious and adjust the seasoning if needed. Let the sauce sit for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to marry.
• Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil.
• Add two-thirds of the sauce to a large skillet and bring to medium-high heat--the idea is to heat up the sauce without really cooking it so you maintain the raw integrity of the veggies.
• Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until it is tender but still toothsome, 2 to 3 minutes--you don't want any limp noodles. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce, along with 1/2 cup reserved pasta cooking water if needed and stir vigorously. If the pasta needs it, add the reserved sauce (if it's not needed, then you have lunch for tomorrow!). Cook the pasta together with the sauce until the pasta water has evaporated. Give the pasta a drizzle of big fat finishing oil and stir vigorously again. Divide among individual serving dishes and top with the ricotta salata.