Pasta Grannies: The Official Cookbook by Vicky Bennison

Author:Vicky Bennison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hardie Grant (UK)
Published: 2019-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

VANDA’S TAGLIOLINI WITH SHRIMP

FOR 4 PEOPLE

One of my favourite restaurants in Italy is La Capanna di Eraclio – Eraclio’s Hut. It’s in the middle of the Po Delta, where roads and ditches run tandem with each other and the sky’s so big you can practically see the curvature of the earth. Not so long ago, it teemed with labourers toiling in the huge fields, and on the corner of one stood Eraclio’s family home. Life was tough. One pigeon had to flavour a meal for eight people, and sometimes they had singalongs to distract them from the fact there wasn’t enough food for the family to eat.

The family had to be entrepreneurial, so they started by being the local alimentari – the grocer’s shop. Then a brother became the local ‘bike-smith’, while a sister was the hairdresser. The alimentari started selling lunchtime snacks and it gradually evolved into a restaurant. Today, it has a Michelin star, but the atmosphere and decor remain homely. Eraclio was Vanda’s father-in-law; she arrived, a young bride from Mantua, and went straight into working in the kitchen.

At 89 years old Vanda can still heave coal onto the open range where fish is grilled. And her morning always starts with making pasta – a routine she has kept for over 60 years. Daughter and chef, Maria Grazia, made the condimento with a local crustacean called canocchie (mantis shrimp). It is very similar to prawn in its flavour, but has a slightly softer texture. If you don’t live on the Adriatic coastline, then use any raw prawn (shrimp) that is in season where you live. Vanda and Maria say tagliolini are often served with a seafood dressing – they are thin tagliatelle and should be 3 mm wide. Using a straight-bladed, large, very sharp knife makes this task easier.

FOR THE PASTA

400 g (14 oz/3⅓ cups) finely ground semolina flour

4 eggs

FOR THE MANTIS SHRIMP

800 g (1 lb 12 oz) raw mantis shrimp or prawns (in their shells)

½ teaspoon ground fennel seeds

1 tablespoon anise-flavoured alcohol

ice cubes

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 fresh red chilli sliced (adjust to your heat tolerance)

1 garlic clove

salt

TO SERVE

chopped parsley

Using semolina flour with eggs makes a very firm pasta dough – make it in the same way as described for the egg-based pasta. Traditionally, in this part of Italy, cooks would have used soft wheat flour.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of 1 mm. Leave the sfoglia to dry out a little. How long you leave it will depend on the temperature and humidity of your kitchen – you don’t want it to stick together, but at the same time you don’t want it to crack when rolled. Vanda left her dough for 10 minutes with the ceiling fan on.

Flour the dough and roll it over from each side, so the rolls meet in the middle (like a double scroll). Then fold one over the other and use a sharp, long-bladed knife to cut across the pasta to create folded over ribbons about 3 mm wide.

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