On the Table – Pasta Piemontese: Tajarin, Piedmont’s Rich Egg Noodle Pasta

Italy is the undisputed Land of Pasta, with the average Italian family consuming around 70 pounds of the beloved dish each year. However, pasta’s ubiquity should not be mistaken for uniformity—simple ingredients of flour, water and sometimes egg, are transformed into a dizzying array of shapes, served alongside an equally great variety of sauces. “If anything,” notes Oretta Zanini De Vita in the epic Encyclopedia of Pasta, “[T]he hundreds of divergent pasta shapes accentuate Italy’s regional differences and draw attention to the distinctions that define precise local identities” (Zanini De Vita 2009).

Of the more than 500 shapes of Italian pasta, perhaps none is more illustrative of this point than the humble tagliatelle, ribbon-cut egg noodles. From the verb tagliare, meaning “to cut,” tagliatelle and all its myriad variants are made by cutting a sheet of fresh pasta (lasagne) into various widths—fettuccine (wider), tagliolini (thinner), capelli d’angelo (impossibly thin angel’s hair).

Though the art of cutting sheets of lasagne dates back to at least the fifteenth century (Hildebrand 2010), it was the later addition of eggs (whole or yolks) and use of finer flour that made it possible to roll the dough to the necessary thinness characteristic of tagliatelle (Zanini De Vita 2009). To cook, the delicate ribbons are quickly boiled in water, then typically served as a pastasciutta (with sauce).

Due to this fairly simple preparation, tagliatelle is widespread from north to south, and was associated with peasant cooking (Capatti 1999). In the countryside, this meant fresh pasta, made as needed, and often only for important feasts—a stark contrast to the factory-made dried pasta that is popular today both in Italy and beyond.

Tagliatelle varies from region to region in its ingredients and accompanying sauce, often flavored with whatever the surrounding landscape has to offer. The German influence on the northernmost region of Alto Adige is reflected in the addition of pork blood, making for a heartier one-dish meal. Lombardy’s bardele coi morai is flavored with borage, an herbaceous flower, while Emila’s noodles get their green from spinach (Zanini De Vita 2009). Wider fettuccine are preferred in the south; and in Abruzzo and Molise, the noodles were traditionally cooked in milk (Hildebrand 2010).

The variation of perhaps the greatest renown is local to Piedmont. Isolated by mountain ranges in northwest Italy, Piedmont developed a strong regional identity that is reflected in continued use of its own dialect and a unique local cuisine. Tajarin (pronounced “tie-yah-REEN”), the Piedmontese version of tagliatelle, is famous for an astonishingly high ratio of eggs, resulting in richly decadent pasta that is “regarded today with the respect due a true culinary monument” (Zanini De Vita 2009). The standard ratio of one egg per 100 grams (3 ½ ounces) of flour is “regarded with disdain by Piedmontese gastronomes,” who opt for twenty eggs—sometimes just yolks!—or more per kilo (2.2 pounds) of flour (Zanini De Vita 2009).

Reflecting the humble resourcefulness that is typical of la cucina povera, tajarin was often served with comodino, a sumptuous ragù of organ meats from home-raised poultry and rabbits, the latter of which were commonly fed vegetable scraps discarded by gardeners who grew the area’s prized produce (Zanini De Vita 2009). More simply, but in a fashion no less Piemontese or luxurious, tajarin is also commonly served with butter and shavings of the region’s legendarily prized white truffles.

The extravagance of tajarin—especially considering the high price of eggs throughout most of modern history (Hildebrand 2010)—embodies Piedmont’s “old farm wealth,” (Zanini De Vita 2009). As one of Italy’s most geographically diverse regions, ranging from hillsides and mountains to swamps and seaside, Piedmont enjoys an incredible variety of agricultural abundance. Thus, regional variations on this simple dish often reveal something deeper about the associated place. As Zanini De Vita observed, “Greater prosperity and better living conditions in some areas can be inferred from the ingredients used in local pasta” (Zanini De Vita 2009). To illustrate this point, compare tajarin to the more austere (though no less delicious) taglioline of Puglia, in the less agriculturally diverse south, made only of durum wheat and water.

In this way, tajarin is emblematic of the rich and flavorful cucina piemontese, a reflection of the region’s agricultural wealth, and an exemplar of Piedmont’s robust regional identity.

Piedmontese Egg Noodle Pasta (Tajarin)
Adapted from Cucina Piemontese: Cooking from Italy’s Piedmont Region
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for rolling and cutting
2 eggs
6 egg yolks
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 tablespoons salt

Instructions
Whisk together flour and salt with a fork in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Create a deep well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs and egg yolks into this well. Whisk the eggs with the fork to combine. As you whisk the eggs, begin gradually pulling in flour from the bottom and sides of the bowl until a very soft ball is formed. Don’t worry if you haven’t used all the flour.

Turn the dough and any excess flour out onto a well-floured surface and gently fold the dough on itself, repeatedly flattening and folding. Once the dough is firm enough, knead until the dough forms a smooth elastic ball and has very few air bubbles when cut.

Cover and let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into four equal portions. Keep the pieces you aren’t working with covered so they don’t dry out.

Flour the pasta machine’s rollers, set it at the widest setting and run the dough through. Fold the dough over and run it through the machine again. Repeat this process, making the settings thinner and thinner until your dough is as thin as possible. Lay the dough on a floured surface to rest for 10 or 15 minutes.

Set the pasta machine’s cutter at medium width and run the thin pasta sheets through. Be careful to keep the dough well floured so that the strands don’t stick together. Lay the ribbons on a floured surface in straight rows and let dry until they begin to harden, about 45 to 75 minutes.

To cook, bring 8 quarts of water to boil with salt. Add the pasta, stirring to make sure it doesn’t stick or clump together, and cook for 1 minute. Drain and serve immediately.

Serving suggestions: Toss with butter and, if available, shavings of fresh truffle. Otherwise, freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano will do.

Note: The dough can also be made in a mixer or food processor. If you want to keep things traditional, the dough can be rolled and cut by hand. Check out this tutorial for information about both methods.

References:

Capatti, Alberto, and Montanri, Massimo, Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History. New York: Columbia University Press (1999).

Hildebrand, Caz, and Kennedy, Jacob, The Geometry of Pasta. Philadelphia: Quirk Books 2010.

Zanini De Vita, Oretta, Encyclopedia of Pasta. Berkeley: University of California Press 2009.