I love cooking, but I must confess there is one thing that I had never made….until a couple of days ago: handmade pasta! I wanted to try and, with the help of my mum (an excellent pasta maker) I made ‘tagliolini’, a type of ribbon pasta traditionally cooked with chickpeas (PASTA E CECI).

Considering it was my first time, and that I didn’t use a pasta maker, the result wasn’t too bad. Actually, the final dish, with chickpeas, was delicious. There is still room for improvement but now I know that making pasta isn’t too difficult after all! I encourage you to try.

INGREDIENTS:

• 500 g strong flour
• 300 ml water
• 1 egg
• 250 g dried chickpeas
• 1 garlic clove
• 5 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 2 rosemary stems
• salt and pepper

Soak the chickpeas overnight, for about 12 hours, in fresh cold water. The day after, place the soaked peas in a saucepan with cold water, bring it to the boil and cook the chickpeas for about an hour until cooked and tender. In the meantime start to make the pasta by kneading the flour, adding 1 egg and adding the water gradually. Cut the resulting dough in 5 pieces.

Using a rolling pin, from each piece make a pasta sheet about 10 cm x 5 cm (use a knife to make a nice rectangular shape). Put each sheet on top of the others and, using a sharp knife, cut vertically, together, all the 5 sheets to create ribbons.

When the pasta is ready to be cooked, bring to boil a large saucepan of water, adding a tbs of rock salt. Cook the pasta for few minutes until it tastes cooked, without being too soft. In the meantime, drain the chickpeas and save the cooking water for later. Cut the garlic clove in small pieces and brown them in 5 tbs of extra virgin oil. Add the rosemary, the drained chickpeas, salt and pepper. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add the pasta and some tbs of the saved water. Pronto! Buon appetito!

🍷 AGNESE RECOMMENDS:

I love this dish and, given that legumes have a high protein content but a lot of starch, that gives them a sweet taste, I can see a good combination with a young red wine with a good acidity, that can compensate the sweetness.  The combination with a Barbera D’Alba 2019 inspires me: this wine has a strong aroma of ripe fruit and spices but also a good body and a good persistence.  It is a wine with a long tradition, easy to find abroad and online. One of my favourites is “Battaglione 2019 – Renato Ratti”, online HERE.