Italian Food (1)
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Italian Food (1)

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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of fresh pasta?

Outside of Italy, most people probably think of egg pasta, such as tagliatelle and fettucine. However, egg pasta is just one branch of fresh pasta. The latter, as we intend it in Italy, is made with water and semolina flour (durum wheat), whereas the former is made with eggs and double-zero flour (soft wheat). It goes without saying that there are countless exceptions in both cases. Some recipes may require the addition, removal or substitution of ingredients.

There’s a further distinction to be made. In northern and central Italy, fresh pasta is usually made with soft wheat flour, while in the south it's almost always made with semolina flour. Indeed, fresh semolina pasta is deeply rooted in southern gastronomy.

I’ll be introducing some of the most common types of fresh pasta in the next few instalments. So stay tuned!

A side note: if you’re a keen observer, you may’ve noticed that fresh pasta has the same ingredients as dry pasta. That’s because dry pasta is basically fresh pasta, but dried. Of course, the former goes through different steps before it’s dried, but that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, there’s enough information on this post for you to reach an interesting conclusion on your own. Post your guesses in the comments below, but don’t cheat by looking things up.

Headline image by andersjilden on Unsplash

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