Pasta

Tortellini are traditionally served in broth; Basic Chicken Stock (page 41) or Basic Brown Stock (page 50) would be equally delicious.

Settings on pasta makers vary (some have as many as ten settings, others only six); this recipe was developed using a hand-cranked pasta machine, but you can use any machine as long as you change the settings incrementally.

Everything I know about pasta I learned from working with Mario and his team of chefs at Del Posto, Babbo, and Lupa. Through them, my eyes were opened to the beauty and complexity of pasta. At the Pizzeria, Nancy had already elevated pizza to exactly where she wanted it to be, and after my Del Posto experience, I knew I wanted to do the same thing at the Osteria with pasta. I can only hope that I have done “the family” justice, both in our pasta program at Mozza and with my attempts to pass that along to you.

We use this dough to make all of our filled pasta shapes such as Fresh Ricotta and Egg Ravioli with Brown Butter (page 175) and Francobolli di Brasato al Pomodoro with Basil and Ricotta Salata al Forno (page 177).

This dough is more toothsome than any of our other pasta dough because it is fortified with semolina, a by-product of milling durum wheat flour, which is what the majority of dried pasta is made of. We use it to make orecchiette and pici, both of which need a strong dough to hold their shape.

We use dry dough to make the pastas that we serve with our ragùs. It gets shaped into maltagliati, garganelli, corzetti stampati, and tagliatelle (all described later), as well as other short shapes. We call it dry dough because it feels dryer than our basic pasta dough since it is made with only egg yolks and no whites.

It’s very traditional to use ortiche, or “nettles,” to make green pasta such as this one. Despite the fact that they are often called “stinging nettles,” they don’t really sting, but they do have a bristly texture that can irritate your skin. If you wash them first, they won’t bother you as you pick the leaves off the stems. Another solution is to wear thin rubber gloves. If you can’t find nettles, spinach is an acceptable substitute. In either case, the greens have so much water in them (no matter how much you try to squeeze it all out) that we use very few eggs in this dough.

This is the Basic Pasta Dough with the addition of squid ink. The ink makes the pasta black and also infuses it with a subtle seafood flavor. You may want to wear plastic gloves while making this pasta; otherwise, the black ink will stain your hands for days. You can buy squid ink or cuttlefish ink at Italian and specialty food stores; if you can’t find it, you can’t make this dough. Use a quality store-bought squid ink pasta, preferably fresh, instead.

Pici are long, hand-rolled strands from the Montalcino area of Tuscany, not far from my house. Also called umbrichella, this pasta is the most typical shape in my region, so naturally I wanted to serve it at Mozza. Although it is not a regular item on the menu, we often use pici in place of the gnocchi in the Gnocchi with Duck Ragù (page 187).

Orecchiette, meaning “little ears,” are small dome- shaped disks. They are the most common shape in Puglia. They’re used in many regional dishes there, including the one that inspired our Orecchiette with Fennel Sausage and Swiss Chard (page 180). Although this shape doesn’t look as intricate as some of the others, it is one of the most difficult to shape, which is probably why so few restaurants make their own. Following our instructions, you can’t fail. To get the desired texture on the surface of the pasta, we suggest you use a plastic cutting board. At the Osteria, we use a wooden cutting board that has been deliberately scored with a knife, which gives the orecchiette the texture we want.

Maltagliati means “badly cut,” and is so named because the pieces are cut from the sheet of dough in random shapes. In order for us to ensure that the pasta cooks evenly, however, ours only look randomly cut but are actually all cut to the exact same shape and size.

Garganelli, which comes from the word gargala, meaning “trachea,” are hollow ridged tubes, similar to penne. We prefer garganelli for our ragù bolognese (see page 189) over the more traditional tagliatelle because we like the way the small bits of sauce stick to the ridges on the outside and get tucked inside the tubes. Since garganelli are also a specialty of Bologna, we think that we haven’t done too much injustice to tradition. To make this shape you’ll want to have a thin plastic pen on hand. We remove the ink cartridge just to be safe, and you might want to do the same.

Corzetti stampati, or “stamped coins,” are a traditional pasta shape of Genoa, made using a wooden stamp to imprint a design onto the “coins.” Corzetti are usually served with the most famous Genoese pasta dish: basil pesto with green beans and potatoes. Matt and I shirked that tradition and serve ours with a Sicilian dish, pasta with eggplant and tomato sauce, instead. If you can’t find a stamp, you could get away with making unstamped coins using a 2-to 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter.

Chitarra means “guitar” in Italian, and the shape, a specialty of Abruzzo, gets its name from the device with which it’s made—a wooden frame strung with metal wire like a guitar. The way it works is that a sheet of pasta dough is pressed down onto the strings, which cut the sheet into long, square spaghetti-like strands. We make chitarra alternately this way and by cutting the sheets with a long knife.

I’m generally turned off when people describe food as being “sexy,” but sexy is the best description I have for this warm, luscious, pillowy raviolo. The word raviolo is the singular for ravioli, and this is one big, square raviolo filled with ricotta and a raw egg yolk. We are not at all ashamed to tell you that this is a direct rip-off from Michael Tusk, the chef and owner of Quince restaurant in San Francisco. The first time I had it, I thought it was one of the best things I had ever eaten, and for sure the single best pasta dish I’d ever put in my mouth. When our servers bring this to the table, they suggest to the guests that they cut into the raviolo starting from the center so the egg pours out onto the plate into the pool of browned butter that the raviolo sits in. It’s sexy. What else can I say? We recommend you use farmfresh eggs with bright orange yolks. You will need a 3 × 3-inch fluted cookie cutter or a fluted pastry cutter to make these.

Francobolli is Italian for “postage stamps,” and that’s what these small, filled pasta shapes look like. They are filled with braised short ribs that we whip with Parmigiano and then top with a simple tomato sauce. The reason for you to make this is the same reason we make it: to use leftover Brasato. This recipe makes more ravioli than you will need for four servings. You can either freeze the remaining ravioli or double the sauce recipe. If you double the sauce recipe, toss the sauce with the ravioli four servings at a time. Ricotta salata is ricotta cheese that has been pressed and salted. The result is a hard, bright white grating cheese with a much stronger flavor than fresh ricotta. Matt got the idea to bake the cheese in a very hot oven, which gives it a smoky flavor.

Before we opened the Osteria, Matt made all of the dishes he wanted to put on the pasta menu for us to taste together. When he made this dish—his version of a classic from Puglia—I was absolutely convinced that the pasta program we were committing to was a good idea, and that Matt was absolutely the one to execute it. Evidently I’m not alone because this has been our most popular pasta since the day we opened. The chard you will prepare for this dish makes more than you will need for four servings, as does the Fennel Sausage recipe. It would be a good recipe to double and serve to a crowd—just remember to prepare the sauce and toss it with the pasta in two separate sauté pans.

Years ago my friend Paul Schrade gave me a wooden pasta stamp, which I never used. Since I’m a baker, I occasionally thought about using it to make a pretty cookie, but I never thought to use it for its intended use: to imprint corzetti stampati, or “stamped coins.” Then about a year after Mozza opened, when I’d run out of projects to nudge Matt about, I broke out the stamp and told Matt to get to work. Rather than follow the traditional Genoese route of serving corzetti with green beans, potatoes, and pesto, Matt came up with a version of Pasta alla Norma—Sicily’s most famous pasta dish that combines tomato sauce, eggplant, and sheep’s milk ricotta—using the corzetti in place of the spaghetti or penne traditionally used. We use Japanese eggplant and slice it into medallions, which work really nicely with the flat “coins.” No Italian in his right mind would ever take a shape from Genoa and toss it with a sauce from Sicily, but that’s one of the advantages of being American. Though we try to be respectful of tradition, we are not bound by it. Think of it as Italian fusion—and enjoy.

This is an Italian interpretation of a grilled lamb entrée you might see at a Lebanese restaurant. Scottadito means “burnt fingers” in Italian, and it refers to the fact that the lamb bones are meant to be picked up with your fingers while they’re searingly hot. We serve the lamb with a tabbouleh-like salad made of fregola sarda, a bread crumb–size pasta shape from Sardinia so small it acts like a grain in the kitchen, and Greek yogurt.