The ladies of the pasta lab are as varied as the pasta we make, and I love it - the regulars include a woman from the Mountains in the north of Italy, quick to provide humor when tensions start to run a little high; there is a Sicilian, who is able to roll pasta faster than any machine I have seen; a Bolognese woman (I think) who can bang out prep faster than the speediest of prep cooks, a maternal figure who kept the kitchen in line, and of course there are the nonnas - the matriarchs of the lab, those whose word is pretty much a decree from Pasta Jesus Christ Almighty, to be obeyed and not contended.
It's from these lovely ladies that I have been learning everything I could possibly need to know about pasta - from the finicky but inexplicably beautiful art of rolling pasta by hand (fatto a mano), to traditional fillings and of course, classical shapes. They make it all look easy. Way easier than it actually is. It took me 2 full days to figure out how to properly shape a tortellino. When I asked why mine were tall and slender and theirs were squat and fat, I was met with the reply, "Pasta is made differently by different people. It's a Matt tortellino!" Not quite satisfied with the answer, and being the obsessive person I am, I took to that most valuable of resources: YouTube. After watching 2 minute long videos of tortellini tutorials, I resigned myself to the Matt tortellini being adequate...for now, as there was an English speaking woman coming in the next day. She would surely be able to help, as that damn language barrier would be completely smashed to bits!!!
Unfortunately her response wasn't much different, so it was back to the book...errr...YouTube. Frustration. More questions. Answers. No progress. Progress. Perfect! Then I left for three weeks and promptly forgot it all. It took me another 2 days to figure it out upon returning, again with the aid of videos that were actually moving at a tempo I could grasp this time. Success!!
Floating high on cloud nine, I happily asked one of the ladies if I could try rolling the sfolgia (the pasta dough in sheet form) the following day. She agreed, and it was a disaster. The process of rolling the sfolgia, when done right, is one of the most fucking gorgeous things I have ever seen. It probably doesn't hurt that there is sunlight constantly streaming in through large floor-to-ceiling windows all day (May have a different vibe in a prep dungeon). It consists of a few stages (and about 3 rolling techniques that have different pressures and hand positions applied) which I will attempt to explain:
1) dimpling the dough yo - just like starting a homemade pizza
2) stretch it - short little stutter rolls with pressure applied from above
3) roll it - always from the middle with a bit of the dough hanging over the edge, pushing the mattarello (giant rolling pin) from behind
4) even out edges using the same rolling technique as in 2)
5) even out middle with the third rolling technique. I have no idea how to describe this one.
There's the whole issue of getting a pasta sheet to an even thickness using the above method, but there are other obstacles you could encounter should your mind start to wander:
If you don't have enough flour it sticks to the pin and/or the work surface. Either way it sucks, and even after gentle pulling and blowing on it in a last ditch effort to loosen the now flypaper-like dough from itself it may very well rip. Lost dough is heartbreaking, not only because so much work goes into making it and rolling it, but also because this method (fatto a mano) minimalizes dough loss to a fraction of why I have seen.
Too much flour and the dough will be, or worse, will crack when you try to fold it into the shapes.
Today (my last day until January), I rolled what I thought was a pretty great sheet, albeit so slowly someone else had to complete it. Time was of the essence and I am still very much at the stage where I am prioritizing proper technique over speed. I have bought my own mattarello to practice on the farms though. Hopefully once I retune home I'll be able to give those hand crank machines arum for their money!!'
Til next time. Ciao!!
