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.