"There's a fine line between rustic and lazy, and the Italians have figured it out," says chef Massimo Mele while he rolls a piece of dough around a skewer. He is showing me how to make ferretti pasta, a hand rolled pasta from southern Italy. Ferretti translates to "wire" and each pieces is traditionally shaped using wire or knitting needles. The beauty of the hand made version is that no two pieces are alike; each curves and rolls in its own unique way. In Italy women gather, sitting on chairs and talk and roll the pasta and at the end of the day, each one takes a portion of the pasta home with them.
Ferretti pasta is made using a flour and water dough. Massimo explains that the richer egg based pastas like pappardelle came from wealthier areas in the north of Italy while the poorer southern area tended to make pasta without eggs. Once the dough is made and then rested for 30 minutes in the fridge and then brought to room temperature, he slices the dough up. He then takes a skewer to shape the pasta. It's a surprisingly easy process where you rub your hands together rapidly and create the rolled shapes in varying lengths.
Earlier that day he made his last batch of tomato passata transforming twenty cases of the last of the season's tomatoes. Usually passatta is made once a year during tomato season but he didn't predict how busy his restaurant La Scala in Woollahra would be. "Slower is better," he says for cooking the passata. His mother used to start the sauce on a Saturday night and it would be ready when they returned from church on Sunday.
He mostly uses roma tomatoes for passata as these are the closest to the famous San Marzano tomatoes. The only tomatoes that he wouldn't use are Black Russians or yellow tomatoes. He first blisters the tomtatoes in the oven before passing them through a passata machine - twice to get every bit of tomato juice away from the seeds and skin. It is then decanted into a bottle with a spoonful of olive oil at the top and the bottles are then placed in cold water that is then brought to the boil. His tip is to put a small potato in the water and once that is cooked, the passata is ready and ready to cool down.
Massimo recalls his first batch made a few months ago when La Scala was freshly painted. His mother warned him that he shouldn't fill the bottle up but then his father told him to ensure that there wasn't any air in the glass bottle. He went with his father's advice and as a result, some of the bottles burst all over their newly painted walls.
The moral of the story? "Your mum is always right!" he says.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried making your own pasta? And would you listen to your mother or father's advice on cooking generally?
Reader Comments
Loading comments...Add Comment