Bolognese pasta dough is made with eggs and flour.
Mainly, making Bolognese pasta dough (in Italian: sfoglia) needs only a few ingredients that skilled hands turn into something special: a large number of pasta shapes that make Italy’s gastronomic heritage unique.
Bolognese pasta dough.
Along Via Emilia, in Emilia as in Romagna, the tradition of pasta dough has the same characteristics.
The main ones are:
1) the ingredients.
Eggs and flour. No water, oil or salt. Just whole eggs and flour;
2) rolling pin and wooden chopping board.
They are essential in the preparation and history of sfoglia. So much so that, in Emilia-Romagna, there is a particular sanitary derogation that allows the use of wooden cutting boards. Above all in fresh pasta laboratories when, everywhere in Italy, it is compulsory to use less porous surfaces;
3) gestures.
It’s true that if you don’t know how to make pasta, it’s ok to use a pasta machine.
But the gestures from which the pastry takes shape are precious. Knowing the gestures for making sfoglia helps you to make less effort. They are also part of the tradition and enrich the gastronomic heritage, which by extension also becomes cultural.
It is a pure illusion to think you can preserve a recipe from oblivion by transcribing the ingredients.
A recipe is never the combination of ingredients; it is also made up of gestures.
The typical gestures of puff pastry are enchanting and, sometimes, can be helpful to save you small mistakes and effort.
In short, the main elements of Bolognese pasta dough are two ingredients (eggs and flour); a wooden cutting board and gestures of the azdora.
The pasta dough of Bologna, but also Emilian and Romagnola.
When I was a child, I used to see the women make pasta dough.
I loved smelling it in the air. Of course, I would eat it.
If pasta dough were a fabric, I would dress in sfoglia or cover a sofa of it.
If it were fabric, it would be the most precious. Pasta tells the story of a territory, of many families, but above all, it represents more than many other foods the evolution in the history of women’s habits.
The sfoglia was made by the women of the house and the servicewomen. Then women began to sell their art outside the home, to restaurants and pasta factories. The sfoglia first represented constraint and then became a manifesto of emancipation.
Today, for a woman, making sfoglia is a choice and a pleasure, not a duty. And, finally, it has become a story that includes everyone, men and women.
A home cook who is learning.
Being called Tortellini&CO and knowing how to make good pasta are two different things.
I’ll tell you a behind-the-scenes story.
The name was chosen by an American friend who wanted to write a blog with me.
After registering the domain of the blog, she said she couldn’t.
Such is life. But that was the name, and I decided to go ahead.
To pick up the thread of the interrupted story between me and the pasta dough, I took a course with a very experienced pasta maker.
As time went by, I became the last witness of the home recipes, and I felt the responsibility and the desire to share that heritage of flavors and gestures before I forgot.
So here I am.
More than a recipe, I leave you a tale obout sfoglia Bolognese with tricks, tips, and curiosities.
Buona vita, Monica
Bolognese tortellini and pasta dough.
Without pasta dough, there would be no tortellini either. HERE find my family recipe, it is super traditional.
Stay in the know!
To receive unpublished recipes, tips, and food stories, sign up for the Tortellini&CO newsletter. You can disable it anytime.
Keep in Touch.
If you like, follow me on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.
Food tips.
A wooden cutting board and rolling pin need to make a fragrant pastry.
Choose eggs from properly fed, free-range hens. Want a more yellow pasta dough? Add one egg yolk.
Remember that 1 egg = 60g. If you add a wet part – for example, spinach for the green pastry or tomato paste for the red pastry – remove one egg and add 60g of the ingredient you have chosen to color the pastry.
Between the dough and the next step (to roll out), I change the cutting board.
Usually, I start with a smaller one to make the volcano and knead the dough. Then, I change cutting board.
The best thing is to roll out pasta dough on a clean cutting board to prevent its breaking.
You need to clean the first surface, dirty with eggs and flour, or change it.
Once dry, scrape it with a fork or a knife from the side opposite the blade). I prefer to set the first cutting board aside and proceed with the cleaning at the end.
Never turn the pasta dough from top to bottom and vice versa, but rotate 45 degrees and roll out with a rolling pin.
In the collage of pics, you see how to make the fountain and dough (the sequence starts at the bottom right).
Basic recipe for Bolognese fresh egg pasta dough
serves 4
List of Ingredients
4 eggs
400g 00 flour
for green pasta dough:
replace 1 egg with 60g of blanched and well-drained spinach
Method
Pasta dough.
Place flour in the center of a chopping board in a dome shape, then form a crater in the middle of the volcano and break the eggs into it.
Beat the eggs quickly with a fork in circular movements of the hand from top to bottom.
Begin to incorporate flour from the edges of the volcano and, still using the fork, mix with the eggs.
When the dough starts to get too hard to work with the fork, start working it with your hands: first using your fingertips to bring the crumbs together and then your palm, making two movements.
First, push the dough forward with your palm as if to stretch it, then fold it in on itself, rotate it, and push it forward again with your palm. Knead until the dough is smooth, soft, but not sticky.
Let the dough rest in a plastic bag or wrapped in cling film for about 15 minutes outside the fridge. During this time, gluten mesh strengthens.
After resting, take the dough without handling it too much. If it sticks a little, roll it out and add a little flour, but NEVER give in to the temptation to knead it again, neither a little nor a lot, nor you will have to let it rest again.
Bolognese pasta dough.
Place the dough on a clean, lightly floured wooden board.
Dust the dough with a little flour.
Start making the pasta dough.
First gesture to make pasta dough.
Place the rolling pin in the center of the dough and move upwards, pushing the rolling pin in a jerky manner to flatten the dough.
Rotate the dough by 45 degrees and repeat the process (but you’ll need to repeat this 3-4 times before the dough starts to become large and smooth). When pasta dough begins to be large, drop half of the pastry onto the cutting board and hold the excess part lightly in place with your side (wear a clean apron).
It is time to introduce a new gesture.
Now the pastry is getting bigger.
Do not turn it with your hands.
Roll the pastry on the rolling pin, making it stick well, rotate by 45 degrees, unroll the pasta dough on the cutting board and start rolling again.
Before the pasta dough starts to dry out, are you ready for the third gesture?
Keeping half the sheet on the board and half off it, slide the rolling pin under your palms, rolling it back and forth over the sheet. Always turn pasta dough 45 degrees to work all sides.
You need to obtain the desired thickness. Make an oval shape for tagliatelle and a circular shape for tortelloni and tortellini.
Once rolled out, the pastry must rest covered to avoid drying out.
Use clean tea towels or a plastic sheet.
