RuvidaMente
The homeland of taglierini is Piedmont, where the ancient recipe called for a mixture of flour and eggs, with the addition of grated cheese.
Taglierini are very thin strips (only 2 mm) of egg puff pastry, with a flat section.
The delicate consistency makes them perfect for enhancing the most delicious and light condiments, although the traditional recipe recommends pairing them with a meat sauce with a strong flavor, perhaps enriched with the use of livers and lard.
To prepare a more refined recipe, the combination with truffle is perfect, which shares the territorial origin with this delicious egg pasta shape.
Taglierini, however, are also ideal for excellent spoon first courses: bean or broad bean soups are enhanced by the presence of these thin threads of egg puff pastry; prepared both hot and warm..
As in the world of semolina pasta, where we find spaghetti, spaghettini, spaghettoni...), also in the kingdom of egg pasta we find many long formats, which differ based on the width of the strip and, in some cases, the color of the pasta.
Thus, alongside tagliatelle, pappardelle, fettuccine and paglia e fieno, we also find tagliolini: very thin strips of flat-section puff pastry, artfully pulled to make this format light and refined. Their almost impalpable consistency makes them particularly suitable for pairing with the most delicate sauces.
Tagliolini are used both whole, in tasty vegetable soups, and broken, in delicate meat or fish consommés.
Despite their apparent fragility, Tagliolini can also be used to prepare excellent dry first courses, as long as they are not weighed down with sauces that are too rich.
According to a famous Mantuan chef, the origin of tortelli has very distant and popular roots.
It was a Lombard peasant woman named Libissa who invented the “raffioli, wrapped in puff pastry and called malfatti by the Lombards” eight centuries ago. The word "tortei", however, appears for the first time in the gastronomic chronicles of the Mantuan Court around 1500, and they are described as "flowers filled with every good thing".
It is not difficult to think that, since our economy was rural, even the kitchen used the elements available in the garden or in the fields, depending on the season.
The "risidure" (women who controlled the management of the house), therefore, accustomed to doing with the little they had, worked hard to create new dishes, poor in basic elements but of great effect for the eye and the palate.
Therefore, alongside the famous tortelli with pumpkin filling, a must on Mantuan tables on Christmas Eve, other poorer recipes developed that, using basic elements such as puff pastry, eggs, bread, Grana Padano and nutmeg, had variations that used different types of vegetables to make the filling.
Tortellini are a typical dish of the city of Bologna.
In the past, they were handmade and eaten exclusively in broth, on important holidays, such as Christmas, New Year's Eve and Easter. Now, however, they are eaten more often and with other condiments: with cream, with ragù and even with bean broth.
A legend tells (and it is a legend because their true origin is unknown) that the inventor of tortellini was an innkeeper from Castelfranco, who was inspired by none other than the goddess Venus. For this reason, however, tortellini are also called "Venus' Navel".