Pizzocheri may be the most difficult fresh pasta to prepare
ingredienti per 4 persone (costo circa 1,5 E a persona)
- Sale
- 500 g fresh pasta without eggs made by:
- a) 200 g buckwheat flour
- b) 140 g soft wheat flour
- c) 160 ml water
- olio d´ oliva
- 1 piccola cipolla
- 1/2 radicchio (both purple and green leaves)
- 8 thin slices speck
- 50 g walnuts
- 40 g di burro
- Pepe nero
I adore buckwheat, it has a very characteristic, very distinctive, very particular aroma. But it also has a disadvantage (which for someone is an advantage): It does not contain gluten.
– And what’s the problem? some may say. The problem is that buckwheat does not create glutenic net so the doughs made of buckwheat flour are very fragile. That´s why the pizzocheri is the most difficult to prepare non stuffed pasta shape.
– And how can we resolve this problem? our friend “some” may ask.
Hmm, not easy, but we try. First of all we add some wheat flour, raising this way the gluten amount of the dough. But this is not enough. So, we make our pizzocheri thicker then the wheat maltagliati, make them more resistant to handling and boiling. And something more. Absolutely exceptionally we add 2 tbsp of olive oil in the boiling pot in order to avoid even stir them during cooking time.
So let’s start. How? By reading of course, our guide to fresh pasta. Here you can learn how to create the dough, what to do and what to avoid.
We prepare the dough and after leaving it rest for half an hour we form rectangular layers of pasta, stopping at dimension 4 of our pasta machine. Then with a cutter we start cutting the layers in stripes of about 1,5 cm width.
Meanwhile in a cold skillet we put the speck slices and using very low heat we gently fry them till crispy. After about 15 to 20 minutes we remove (and keep) the solid parts of the speck, we increase the heat to low and we subfry the onion, minced, till tender. We cut the radicchio in stripes and we add it to the pan along with the butter and some salt and pepper.
Meanwhile we boil the pizzocheri in plenty of boiled water with oil for a couple of minutes, without stirring them. We carry them in the skillet with the radicchio and we carefully mix them with the radicchio.
We put them on plates, adding small pieces of speck and walnut and we serve.
