Video of our Green Tagliatelle with Ragù recipe by Chef Fernando Saracchi.
You can find this dish on our à la Carte Menu
Like our green tagliatelle, all our fresh pasta is handmade. That is, one person kneads dough every day: their job is to make handmade pasta and sauces, so we’ll start there, move to the kitchen, and see how to get hands-on.
What steps should be followed for excellent pasta of this kind?
This is one of our most popular preparations; in fact, we've had it practically since day 1 of the restaurant's opening: it's spinach tagliatelle made with semolina flour and regular 00 flour,
Now we proceed to knead the dough; we put about 50 percent re-milled semolina flour and another 50 percent 00 flour.
So in this case, we reach 500 grams.
We roll it out like the rezdore, the women who used to handle these preparations (as they are called here in Emilia).
We mix the flour well, add the eggs, add the already cooked spinach, which is only squeezed and reduced.
This is basically the preparation. The pasta should be worked for about 15-20 minutes so that the gluten comes out and helps to form a dough that will then hold up to cooking.
This is the dough that comes out after working.
How many hours should it rest before proceeding? About an hour.
This vivid color comes from the spinach that was steamed, then immediately put on ice.
All green vegetables should be cooled as quickly as possible after cooking, so that they retain their color and characteristics: in this case, green for the spinach.
Let's also consider that when rolling out the pasta, the dough is very elastic, so before being cut, it must also be allowed to rest for a moment so that it maintains its original shape.
If we put it on the cutting board, we can see that it slowly shrinks, so we must proceed very calmly and give it time to rest.
We proceed to cut and make the tagliatelle; we put a little semolina flour, because when they are cut, they tend to stick together, so we want to keep them separate.
Here instead, our nests are ready, which should obviously be left to dry slightly and are ready to be put in water.
After how many hours?
Let's say about 5/6 hours, so for example, if we serve these tagliatelle in the evening, we produced them in the morning.
So we make a ragù that we call “knife-cut beef only”, in Emilia we say “it’s not made with the usual minced meat”, but it’s made with meat precisely cut by hand with a knife.
I cut it into small strips. This is adult beef with some fat marbling inside, which essentially gives it flavor and consistency. That is, this is a type of ragù where the meat is the main ingredient and it’s made this way because it still retains all its flavors, unlike minced meat which tends to disperse everything due to its consistency. Let's say it's a first and second course together.
This is step one.
Step number 2: what I'm doing is the classic way to make a ragù in this area.
You start with a drizzle of oil, then we add a soffritto of three classic vegetables: onion, celery, and carrots. The proportions are about 50% onion, the remaining 25% carrots, and 25% celery.
The basic technique for a decent ragù, let's say, is to completely evaporate the meat juices. That is, in practice, it must be browned, so that the meat already absorbs some saltiness, some flavor, we already add salt, not too much.
Finally, a little black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
When the meat juices have all evaporated, we add the white wine, not too much. The white wine must also be completely removed because only the essence of the dry white wine flavor must remain.
Is this a tradition you carry on from your family?
It's a tradition. Of course, ragù in Emilia was made in all families until a while ago. Now things may have changed a bit because the needs are different.
At this point, the wine has evaporated, we add the tomato sauce, which is nothing more than simply peeled tomatoes.
So we see how the wine is slowly drying up and the meat is drying too.
It's time to add the tomatoes. They would only serve to give color, to give that extra touch of acidity.
In practice, if it dries out too much, you can add a little broth or plain water. This is the ragù that will cook for about an hour and a half, two hours at most.
We have finally reached the conclusion: meaning that we have slightly salted water boiling, and we have our tagliatelle ready and also the ragù: so we immerse the tagliatelle for 2 or 3 minutes.
How long does it take approximately? Considering that there's semolina flour inside, 2 minutes might be a bit too al dente, let's do 3 minutes.
When our tagliatelle are cooked, we immerse them in the pan with the hot ragù and toss them.
Our tagliatelle are ready, we just have to plate them, and plating is a word that has only recently entered the Italian vocabulary.
These are our tagliatelle with ragù!
We are 10 minutes from Modena
Via Giardini Nord 440, 41043 Casinalbo di Formigine, Modena, Italy