Wider than “angel’s hair” pasta but thinner than tagliatelle noodles, tajarin (tagliolini noodles in the  Piedmont dialect) were made in the Langhe and Monferrato area farmsteads, in the Piedmont region. From the 15th century, tajarin spread throughout Piedmont, as related in early chronicles. 

It is a festive dish, enjoyed mainly during important celebrations. The generous quantity of
egg yolks in this amazing pasta makes it a “rich” dish, not the best choice
during the working week. Purists consider tajarin to be genuine when it
is made with at least 30 egg yolks per kilo of flour.

I enjoyed tajarin in Alba, a town in Piedmont that is famous for its sophisticated cuisine and famous “white truffle”. 
The restaurant’s pièce-de-résistance was tajarin with white truffle
finely sliced with the special truffle slicer (done by the waiter at my table), tossed with Malga butter (a very fresh rich butter made in a shepherd’s cottage in the mountains). I made my own butter at home: I bought fresh whipping cream and put it in the bowl of a stand mixer, and whisked it at maximum speed until the fat content emulsified. Then I picked up the butter with wet hands and rolled it into balls which I plunged into a bowl of ice water. It only takes few
minutes.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Yield: Makes 2 servings.

Ingredients

• 7 egg yolks (if the dough is too dry, you can add a few tablespoons of egg white)
• 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp (40 g) butter
• 1 tin of crushed tomato 

Instructions

  On a wooden pastry board, pour the flour into a mound, make a hole in its centre and drop the egg yolks into it.

Mix by hand to make a dough that you are going to roll out using a rolling pin.

Let the dough sit for at least 30 minutes, wrap it in cling film or, even better, cover it in a glass bowl.

Roll the dough into a sheet about two millimetres (1/24-inch) thick. Let it dry for at least an hour and a half (depending on the season, in summer 15 minutes are usually enough. The sheet of dough must be dry enough not to stick when you roll it but still flexible to be rolled on itself without breaking).

Flour it lightly, fold a few times to form stacking layers and, using a knife, cut fettuccine about 2 millimetres wide (1/24 inch).

Boil them in salted water for a couple of minutes if they are fresh. If they are frozen, put them directly in the boiling water without thawing, and add a minute to cooking time.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pan, add the drained pasta and 3-4 tablespoons of cooking water, mix and serve. Slice the truffle directly on pasta in the dishes. 

Maltagliati pasta is a very traditional shape in Emilia-Romagna, used for rustic soups like pasta & chickpeas or pasta & beans. Literally, its name means “badly cut”.

All good Italian housewives never waste food and this pasta is made from the remnants of dough cut for other shapes. When you roll pasta dough with a rolling pin you get an irregular shape, when you wrap it in a roll in order to cut fettuccine, or squares for tortelli, you cut the irregular edges.

I set the remnants aside, pile them up one on top of the other, and cut diagonally, first in one direction, then in the other, creating very irregular diamonds. I even cut small pieces into smaller ones by hand.

I then let them dry for an hour and freeze them in a bag.

If you need to make them from scratch, this is the recipe for 4 servings:

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Sitting Time: 2 hours minutes | Total Time: 2 hours and 15 minutes | Yield: Makes 4  servings.

Ingredients

• 7 oz (200 g) all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs

Instructions

On a wooden pastry board, pour the flour into a mound, make a hole in its centre and pour the eggs in it.

Mix by hand to make a dough that you are going to roll out using a rolling pin.

Let the dough sit for at least 30 minutes, wrap it in cling film or, even better, cover it in a glass bowl.

Roll the dough into a sheet about two millimetres (1/24-inch) thick. Let it dry for at least an hour and 1/2.

Flour it lightly, fold a few times to form stacking layers and, using a knife, cut fettuccine about ½ inch wide.

Follow the instructions above.

Pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) is a very typical Italian soup, simple, easy, yet incredibly versatile, as it is prepared many ways all across Italy.

For thousands of years, beans have nourished people from every social class, but its richness in proteins allowed the survival of the most of population who could not afford meat. Every region and corner of Italy has a version of this kind of soup, the simplest soup. It is prepared with an incredible set of variations: with the trinity of onion, carrot and celery, the fundamental ingredients of the majority of Italian sauces and stews; just simply with sliced onion and tomato in order to highlight the flavour of the beans, or parsley, or rosemary. In every Italian town and family there is always the addition of a personal touch.

Yet, despite its modesty, it is considered a comfort food, nourishing, simple but heart-warming.

This recipe is the one I rely on as a Romagnola, and I used it to civilize my husband: he had never eaten beans and soups before meeting me, and since he was such a carnivore, my trick was to blend all the vegetables and add some pancetta or ham to disguise the vegetables. It was like a kind of weaning.

Nowadays, sometimes my pasta e  fagioli (the Italian for pasta & beans) is vegan: I often refer to a recipe I was given in Le Marche region by a restaurant owner/chef, which used just onion and tomato for his soffritto. Then of course you follow the recipe as usual. I always have a supply of frozen maltagliati (fresh egg pasta) in my freezer, but if I use dried pasta, I even create a vegan and even lighter dish.

If I am using fresh pasta which cooks quickly, I cook it in the soup directly, in which case some attentive stirring is in order or the pasta will stick to the bottom of the pot. If you prefer using dried pasta – you should  cook it separately and then add it to the soup.

The only tricky part of making this dish is remembering to soak the beans, which if you are me, can be quite tricky, but is most satisfying when you remember. Then you need to remember to cook them, at a gentle simmer for at least a couple of hours while you spend  your time reading everybody’s latest posts. You can use tinned beans. but then you will miss the water the chickpeas were cooked in which provides agreat stock for your soup.

Usually, in most cookbooks, the beans and the soffritto are cooked in 2 different pots, whereas, since washing too many dishes is against my religion, I use always the same one.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Yield: Makes 4  servings.

Ingredients

• 250g dried chickpeas soaked overnight OR 700g fresh Romano beans
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 small carrot, finely chopped
• ½ celery stick, finely chopped
• 50 g fresh pancetta or pork jowl, diced
• ½ cup (130 g) tomato puree
• 4 tablespoons cup olive oil
• 6 cups (1.5 L) water
• 200g maltagliati pasta (fresh pasta) or ditalini

Instructions

In the pot, sauté the vegetables in olive oil, and after 2 minutes, add the pancetta or pork jowl. Cook for 5-6 minutes on medium-low heat.

When the soffritto is golden, add the tomato puree and simmer for 15 to 17 minutes. Add the beans and 4 cups water (1 L water). Season with salt and let it cook, simmering. It takes about 80 minutes if you decide to cook with a normal pot; if this is the case, I strongly recommend a cast iron pot. In a pressure cooker it takes 20 minutes.

In the cast iron pot, you’ll have probably to add the rest of the water, or even more. Just add it gradually. Preferably hot, or you will lower the cooking temperature and it will take longer.

When beans are cooked, remove a ladleful of beans with some liquid and blend with an immersion blender in a container and add it back to the pot. It will give the soup a creamier texture without adding cheese.

Add pasta and follow the indications for cooking time.

When it is cooked, let it sit for 3 minutes and serve.

Meat stock or broth (nowadays the distinction is quite blurred) is a very popular dish in Northern Italy. It is not only used for adding juices to roasted meats, stews and meat sauces during prolonged cooking, but it also creates wonderful dishes on its own. Northern Italy offers a wonderful variety of pastas created to be cooked and served in broth. There is a whole world of different stocks, made with vegetables, beef, chicken, or fumetto made with fish.

This is a family recipe, it includes hen and beef, and the Italian tradition provides many ways to reuse meats that have lost their juices in the stock.

In order to make a sumptuous stock, meats and vegetables are added to the stockpot when water is cold and left simmering for hours.

The traditional family recipes are very simple, you just need to use a very big stockpot, put the ingredients in it and cover with water. Then it must be put on the stove and left gently bubbling for a long period of time.

Now chefs have enhanced the recipe by cutting the onion into two halves and roasting it for few minutes in a non-stick pan. It adds a stronger flavour to the stock, as it extracts the essence of the vegetable.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 4 hours | Total Time: 4 hours and 20 minutes | Yield: Makes 2 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, peeled
• 1 medium carrot, peeled
• 1 celery stalk
• 2 medium potatoes
• 3 cherry tomatoes
• Half hen or 2-pounds chicken wings
• 1 to 1.5 kg (2.5 to 3.5 lbs) various beef cuts used for Italian braised meat like beef tongue, tail, shin bones with meat, marrow bones and bones with a little meat on them, such as oxtail, short ribs, or knuckle bones (cut in half by a butcher)
• Makes 2.5 litres/10.5 cups

Instructions

Place a large stockpot on the biggest burner. Fill with 4-5 litres/4.5 to 5.5 quarts of cold water (about two-thirds full) and add all the ingredients. Bring the water up to the simmering point.

Gently simmer the stock, covered, for 3-4 hours, or even longer if you have time, topping up with water if necessary. Skim the white foam that bubbles to the surface with a slotted spoon.

Strain stock using a fine-mesh sieve and discard bones and vegetables. Let the broth continue to cool until barely warm, then refrigerate in smaller containers overnight. Remove solidified fat from the top of the chilled stock.

Freeze it in ice cube trays and add it to your risotto, stews and roasts.

Dogs love the boiled carrots, and can be given some of the beef bones. The boiled beef is recycled as a stew, in a dish called lesso rifatto or francesina. I add the hen to vegetable soups, to improve the texture.

This pasta recipe is quite rustic. Savoy cabbage and Italian sausage give a robust quality to this dish, and you can play with different flours. In this case I prefer blending durum wheat and pastry flour, in Italian a “00”, but also using whole wheat or buckwheat is an excellent choice. I do not love artificial colourings; I prefer to add mashed vegetables or aromatic herbs to the flour.

It is a very rich dish, and perfect from a nutritional point of view. If you open the meal with a very fresh salad, the balance will be perfect.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients for pasta

• 3 eggs
• 1 + 2/3 cups (g. 200) pastry flour
• ½  cup + 1 tablespoon (g. 100) durum wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons of fresh rosemary, finely grinded

Ingredients for the sauce

• 3 sausages (350 g. about 12 oz.)
• 1 small Savoy cabbage
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Marine salt

Instructions for pasta

On a wooden pastry board pour the flours in a mound, make a hole at its center and pour the eggs in it. Join the rosemary. Mix, make a dough that you are going to roll out by hand using a rolling pin.  Roll the dough into a sheet about two mm. (1/24-inch) thick.

While pasta is drying, prepare the sauce.

Instructions for the sauce

Put a big pot with salted water on the stove. Wash and core the cabbage leaves (about half of the cabbage).

In a wok, simmer the onion with the oil.

Peel the sausages, chop them in small chops and join them in the pan. Simmer the ingredients together.

Boil the cabbage leaves for a couple of minutes, and then put them in a bowl with water and ice.

Core and shred the leaves. Join them to the sauce.

Sprinkle the pasta dough with durum flour and roll it. Cut it in stripes. If it does not dry, cut it with the tool.

Boil pasta in the same water where you boiled the cabbage and pour it in the wok with the sauce. Add a couple of tablespoons of boiling water, and mix all the ingredients together. Add a bit of olive oil before serving the pasta.

Paccheri is a new pasta shape particularly well suited for being stuffed. With truffle sauce, sausage, and porcini mushrooms, it is ideal for festive occasions. In winter, I always look for occasions to turn on the oven, and this recipe is perfect for holidays and meals with friends and family around a festive table.

It is a rich dish, and a bit time-consuming, but you can prepare the filling in a piping-bag and the sauce in advance, and compose the dish at the last moment.

Porcini mushrooms and white truffle are seasonal and are considered  the sovereigns of Italian cuisine.

Prep Time: 1 hour | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• ¾ lb. (300 g.) Paccheri pasta

Ingredients for the stuffing

• 13 oz. (400 g.) potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 6,5 oz. (180 g.) Italian sausage
• 1 big egg
• 1,5 oz. – 1/3 cup (50 g.) white truffle paste
• Sea salt and black pepper for seasoning

Ingredients for the sauce

• 1 + ½ tablespoons (20 g.) butter
• 3 tablespoons (20 g.) flour
• 1 cup (200 ml.) milk
• 3 oz. (100 g.) Porcini mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley, finely minced
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced
• For the final touch:
• Parmigiano Reggiano, a piece

Instructions

In a blender, combine the ingredients for the filling. Mince everything finely and pour them in a piping bag.

In a pot, make a béchamel melting the butter over low heat, combining the flour and salt and whisking with a fork as you add to prevent lumps. Add the milk a little at a time, whisking as you pour. Raise the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 5 minutes to thicken, whisking to prevent and break up any lumps (eventually use an immersion blender).

In another small pot, combine olive oil, parsley and garlic and simmer for 1 minute over very low heat, then join the mushroom, cover with a lid and cook for 2 minutes.

Join half of the mushroom to the béchamel and mix with an immersion blender.

Pour the sauce on a serving dish that can be used in the oven.

In a pot with salted water, boil the pasta for 2/3 of the cooking time indicated on the box.

Drain pasta and sprinkle with a tablespoon of olive oil and mix. When it is tepid, stuff it with the filling and gently lay it on the sauce, vertically.

Arrange the remaining mushroom around pasta and grate chips of Parmigiano using a potato-peeler.

Bake it in pre-heated oven for 10 minutes at 400 F. (200 C).

The stuffing of this gnocchi is very similar to the one of Ascoli olives, a skilled mix of meats cooked in a soffritto, whose taste is made lighter by a touch of lemon zest. The only complicated phase is finding the procedure to fill the gnocchi; I think that using a piping bag makes the operation a lot easier.

It is quite hard not to find intriguing recipes in Italy: its regional cuisine is extremely rich and varied and, Marche region, not very known by mass tourism, offers us wonderful dishes with meat, vegetables, and fish.

In the near future, I am going to propose some Marche recipes: I learned to appreciate various dishes thanks to some sibling who introduced me to many treats. In addition, some trips in which I explored wonderful restaurants made me appreciate this region even more.

The scarce knowledge of the regional treasures contributed to maintaining an Italian atmosphere, not wretched by the mechanisms of great masses of tourists.

I have always been thinking that the real atmosphere of a country is much better seized in small towns, which tend to be more conservative and contribute to keeping the great Italian culinary tradition alive.

Now the region is living a new awakening, also as a reaction to the destructions caused by an earthquake, which stroke it in 2016: concerts like “Marche Rise Again” and new cycles of art exhibits propose a panoramic view of artistic treasures of the region, like, for instance, the cycle dedicated to Lorenzo Lotto.

Prep Time: 50 minutes | Cooking Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients for the stuffing

• 2,5 pounds (1 kg) white, russet or other starchy potatoes, steamed and peeled
• 2 cups (250 g.) pastry or “00” flour, plus more as needed
• 10 oz. (300 g.) mixed meats (chicken breast, pork, and veal)
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 carrot, finely minced
• 1 onion, finely minced
• 1 celery stalk, finely minced
• ½ glass of white wine
• ½ glass water
• ¼ organic lemon grated zest
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoons butter

Ingredients for the sauce

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 14 oz.  (400 g.)  finely chopped tomato sauce
• Sea salt

Instructions for making the gnocchi

Heat butter and oil in a saucepan and sauté the vegetables in it. When they are cooked, add the meats roughly chopped. Cook the meats, adding water and wine. Stir the meats and, when the wine has evaporated, cover with a lid and make the meats simmer for half an hour. When it is cooked, take the meats, draining them from the cooking liquid, and put them in a mixer.

Filter the cooking liquid with a sieve, and put it aside. Ground the meats in the mixer, then add the yolks, the Parmigiano, the lemon zest, and the cooking liquid. Mix again. Move the stuffing to a piping bag.:

While the meat is cooking, steam the potatoes for the gnocchi.

For making gnocchi, follow the instructions in this recipe.

Divide the dough into parts bigger than usual, since it must contain the filling. Stuff the gnocchi and close the little balls by rolling them quickly between the palms of your hands.

Lay the gnocchi on a paper tray previously sprinkled with flour.

Instructions for making the sauce

In a non-sticking pan, sauté garlic cloves in oil and discard them when golden. Add the tomato and make it simmer for 10 minutes.

Cook the gnocchi in boiling salted water for few minutes, it can be drained when it floats and poured directly in the pan with the sauce. I suggest using a pastaiola or draining them in batches, using a slotted spoon.

Usually “potage” and “sea” contradict each other. This recipe is connected to “land” ingredients like potatoes, leeks, and a lot of fresh cream.

I created this recipe when trying to exalt Autumn vegetables, and trying to propose something healthy but extremely stimulating. I have always been inspired by French cuisine, but the recipe of the normal potage sounded really a bit too rich with all that cream. I decided to keep potatoes and leeks, add squash and a good fish stock and prawns, and I have to admit that it is very appreciated.

This encounter of fresh ingredients, poor in calories and rich in vitamins and fibers, is an excellent way to taste an unusual dish, light but full of taste.

In Italy, there are other dishes, mainly first courses, that enhance squash, like butternut squash gnocchi, the Ferrara squash ravioli, the Mantua ravioli. This vegetable is wonderful and versatile, rich in fibers, minerals and increases the sensation of fullness, helping a lot for the diets.

While in traditional Italian first courses squash is processed and squeezed, here the labor is extremely reduced; the addition of prawns and chili pepper balances the sweet note of squash and leeks.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Butternut squash is one of the many joys of the season: rain and cold temperatures are compensated by incredibly rich and comforting foods. It is another gift from the Americas, like potatoes.

Accompanied by a creamy Taleggio cheese sauce, this dish speaks about the valley crossed through the Po river, its fog, its chilly temperatures. In this discomforting weather, nevertheless, the inhabitants created a varied cuisine, sophisticated, that requires some manual skills but is a great source of satisfaction.

One of my personal favorites is this recipe of gnocchi: the great canonic recipe of gnocchi is enriched by the addition of Butternut squash. It is extremely versatile: the 00 flour can be easily replaced by the same quantity of gluten-free flour in order to create a dish which can be tasted by our celiac guests. It is important to underline that the temperature of potatoes and squash is fundamental: just tepid, not too hot, or it would require an excessive quantity of flour, nor too cold, or it would be very hard to knead. Still, for the egg intolerant or vegan tablemates, we can decide not to add the egg. We must be quite skilled, though, since the egg makes pasta easier to knead. (and of course, the Taleggio sauce should be replaced by a vegetables one.

This recipe, like many others, is a starting point for a journey in the pleasures of Autumn.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours | Yield: Makes 6 servings.

Ingredients for gnocchi