Ingredients Durum-wheat flour, eggs, water, and salt; formerly only flour and water.
How Made The flour is sifted with a pinch of salt and then kneaded with eggs and water until a dough forms, which is left to rest. Tiny pieces are pinched off and rubbed between the hands into little balls no bigger than grains of rice. The pasta is dried for twenty-four hours before it is cooked in broth.
Also Known As No alternative names.
How Served In vegetable soup or in broth.
This tiny pasta, made in imitation of couscous (see cuscus), was the product of the intense commercial exchanges between Genoa and North Africa. Ligurian cooks, however, were unfamiliar with the difficult original preparation. The word itself is probably taken from the term cuscus.
