Pasta

Commercial pasta bears little resemblance to the homemade variety, apart from a similar shape. Where pasta ‘asciutta’ (dry pasta available in packets) is only a vehicle for its sauce, homemade pasta is good enough to be an end in itself. The main difference is that the homemade varieties are made with fresh eggs and obviously worked by hand instead of machine. But many things can affect the quality of even, an expert cook’s pasta. Onelia, the pasta cook at the Locanda dell’Amorosa, cannot achieve the same degree of tenderness when making pasta dough at l’Amorosa as she can using the same technique in the Chianti district. One reason is the difference in water. Another is that many of the eggs in Chianti have very large yolks which absorb more flour. And as every good pasta cook knows, the more flour used, the firmer the dough and the firmer the dough, the better the pasta. Unfortunately for the novice, it is more difficult to work a very stiff dough.