Hi, this is the thirty fourth post about the art of cooking Italian.

In the last entries we showed you how to make homemade egg pasta.
Do you know you can make egg pasta not only with all-purpose flour but with kamut flour too?
Kamut is an ancient wheat and its flour  is rich in protein and many minerals such as selenium, zinc and magnesium. Magnesium is well known for its antioxidant property.
We like kamut flour, pasta and all its products for many reasons. So we have created a lot of recipes made with these products such as a dish of tagliatelle tossed with king prawn sauce.

Kamut tagliatelle with king prawns

Read more about this recipe and tell us what you think of  …

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Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, this is the thirty third post about the art of cooking and tossing Italian pasta.
Today we want to tell you about another well known Italian dish:  Bolognese tagliatelle.
Outside Italy a lot of people think Bolognese spaghetti is an authentic Italian dish.
It’s wrong!
In Italy we haven’t the habit to toss spaghetti with Bolognese sauce.
We use Bolognese sauce for tagliatelle, cannelloni (you know it as manicotti, of course) and lasagna.
On the contrary there are a lot of Italian sauces to toss spaghetti. In the next entries we’ll show you the most common and famous.

Now let’s talk about Bolognese tagliatelle! You can read the authentic recipe on this page.
Below you can read more details about this recipe: the secrets of our original home cooking and the rules to serve this dish correctly.

Look at the photo below: this is a tasty dish of tagliatelle made at home and tossed with the  fantastic ragù (ragout) from Bologna (Bolognese sauce). Read more details to prepare the sauce and make egg pasta and then tagliatelle at home.

You can make the pasta sauce both with red wine and white wine. Choose the ingredients you prefer. In the photo you can see the sauce made with white wine.  We think this is the best sauce.

You can use the tagliatelle you prefer.  So you aren’t obliged to do homemade pasta,  you can also buy  ready to cook fresh tagliatelle or dried tagliatelle.

Bolognese tagliatelle and its sauce

Look at the photo for more details. This sauce isn’t rich in tomato as you can see in the recipe ingredients too! This is the first rule to serve Bolognese tagliatelle. You have to eat the pasta with its sauce not the sauce with its pasta.

Serve Bolognese  tagliatelle, already tossed, directly in the plate  as you can see in the photo. This is the second rule. We teach you why it is important to serve tagliatelle in this way.
Tagliatelle is a long pasta. The authentic tagliatelle strips are 1 metre (39 in) long.
Imagine to bring a bowl full of tossed tagliatelle to the table. What could happen  while you’re serving your guests and transferring such a long tossed pasta from the bowl  to the plate?
Another mistake is to drain tagliatelle, transfer it into a plate and put a ladle of sauce on the top. Every guest should mix the tagliatelle together with the sauce with his fork on the plate. First of all tagliatelle gets sticky in few moments and everyone could have more problems in tossing it. Besides, according to good manners, your guests must be at their ease. In this way they could get a sauce stain! Would they be at their ease in this way?

The third rule. Don’t sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on the top of the pasta and don’t add Parmesan cheese tossing the tagliatelle. It’s better to put a little bowl full of grated cheese accompanied with a teaspoon on the table. So everyone can do what he prefers.

To finish we want to suggest a last detail that can be very useful if you have guests. If you make tagliatelle at home don’t cut them 1 metre long. Have you ever eaten such a long pasta gracefully? Cut them 50-60 cm long.

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Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, this is the thirty second entry about the art of cooking Italian pasta.

The previous entries were about the right techniques to prepare a perfect Bolognese sauce and homemade green pasta.

Now you can prepare the lasagna layers. Read the instructions on this page.

Here it is the result after baking!

Bolognese lasagna in the pan

Look well at the photo. There isn’t  too much meat sauce and it is well mixed with béchamel sauce.
Besides the surface is flat and must be flat according to the original recipe.

Now look well at the second photo.

A portion of Bolognese lasagna

The original recipe says: “every portion must stand!”
In other words every pasta layer mustn’t slide off. This is the detail that shows the recipe has been made very well.

OK. Why don’t you try to make this fantastic recipe? You can make it all year.
We are waiting for your comments.

Are you interested in all our entries? Read  them in this page.

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Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, this is the thirty first entry about the art of cooking Italian pasta.

Today we want to show you how to make Bolognese sauce, the second main ingredient to prepare Italian lasagna. We have already told you about Bolognese Sauce in two entries we have posted in the last days.
The entry posted on Tuesday, March16th, 2010 was the first dedicated to Bolognese sauce. We  wanted only to remember this sauce is one of the most famous and well known sauces outside Italy even with different names. In this post we linked the recipe page.
The entry posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 was dedicated to the most common mistakes people do with this sauce such as tossing spaghetti instead of tagliatelle.
Today we show you how to make this pasta sauce. You can read step-by-step instructions looking at a series of photos taken in our kitchen last Saturday evening.

In the first photo you can see some of the ingredients you need:
minced beef,
pancetta or bacon, cubed,
carrot, onion and celery,  finely chopped
red wine (but you can use white wine too)
meat stock
pureed tomatoes

Well, you have to chop finely the bacon and saute in a pan for few minutes (you must not add any oil or butter!), stirring frequently, on low heat. (Second and third photo)

Then add the vegetables and stir. Keep on stirring frequently for few minutes. (Fourth and fifth photo)

At this point add the minced beef and stir. Keep on cooking for few minutes. (Sixth and seventh photo)

Pour in the wine and stir. Bring to the boil again and let the wine evaporate partially. (Eighth and ninth photo)

Now add the pureed tomatoes and meat stock. Stir, lower the heat and keep on cooking, half-covered, until the cooking juice is reduced. At this point add other hot meat stock. If you want you can use milk.

You can cook Bolognese sauce for at least 2 hours. So if you want to make Bolognese lasagna you’d prepare the sauce 1 day ahead.

The sauce is ready. (Tenth photo)

For more details read the recipe in this page.

Tomorrow we are going to tell you how to make the layers in the pan and bake the most famous lasagna dish.

Are you interested in all our entries? Read  them in this page.

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Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

Hi, this is the thirtieth entry about the art of cooking Italian pasta.
Today’s entry is dedicated to Bolognese lasagna as we have already written in the last entry.  It’s a laborious and long-to-do recipe but it’s too fantastic you may give up this delicious recipe. We have a doubt: do you know this recipe with this name or as Italian lasagna? Anyway we are talking about the same recipe.
For making Bolognese lasagna you have to prepare:
- egg pasta made with spinach (for the authentic recipe you need this green pasta)
- Bolognese sauce (ragù)
- Béchamel sauce
Today we want to teach you how to prepare a perfect egg dough coloured in green for the presence of spinach.

How to make green egg pasta

You can find the right amount of every ingredient in this page dedicated to Bolognese lasagna recipe.

Now look at the photo very well.  This is the first step to make the dough necessary for Bolognese lasagna. But  you have to prepare the spinach before.
Clean, wash and steam the spinach, let it cool. Then put through a food mill. We suggest you not to boil it.

Sift the flour on the work surface and make a well in the centre. Put the eggs, salt and pureed spinach in the well. Beat the eggs and spinach together with a fork.

Begin mixing the flour with the egg and spinach mixture gathering the white flour from the edge of the well with the fork. Remember to beat continuously.

Keep on mixing the flour with the egg and spinach mixture until half the flour is mixed with the mixture. At this point it’s difficult to beat all the ingredients with the fork.

Now you can keep on working with your fingertips blending more and more flour into the dough. At the end you will have an homogeneous dough.

If the dough is too soft and sticky, work in a little more flour. The dough must be smooth and elastic.

Sprinkle the work surface and the dough with some flour, cover the dough with a napkin and let it rest for almost 25-30 minutes or until ready to roll and shape.
You can also put the dough in a bowl, cover with a cling film and chill overnight.

You can consult this page if you need more photos and details about what we have just described.

Then you have to prepare lasagna sheets. We have a video to show you how to do this step.

Cut out the strips suited to the pan and remember to boil them before using them. Read more details in the recipe page.

Tomorrow we are going to tell you about the sauce you need to make this tasty Italian lasagna dish.

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Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta