Volume XVI

Flour & Water

Eighty recipes in eight chapters, one per region, because Italian food is not a cuisine so much as twenty of them that disagree. Egg dough in the north, semolina and water in the south, and the argument about which is correct is the book. Every pasta is made by hand, and every sauce belongs to the shape it is on.

Try 48 recipes free — two from every book, including this one.

What's inside

• 1 quantity sfoglia dough, from recipe 1
• 4 oz (110 g) pork loin
• 3 oz (85 g) mortadella
• 3 oz (85 g) prosciutto
• 1 cup grated parmesan
• 1 egg
• ¼ tsp grated nutmeg
• 10 cups low-sodium chicken stock
• 1 lb (450 g) beef shin
• 1 onion, halved
• 1 carrot
• 1 tsp fine salt

1. Simmer the stock with the beef shin, onion and carrot for 3 hours without ever letting it boil, then strain through cheesecloth until clear.
2. Brown the pork loin, cool it, and mince it with the mortadella and prosciutto until almost a paste.
3. Work in the parmesan, egg and nutmeg and chill an hour so it firms enough to handle.
4. Cut the sfoglia into 1½ inch squares, put a pea of filling on each, fold to a triangle, then wrap around your fingertip and pinch the corners together.
5. Cook them in the simmering broth for 3 minutes and serve in it, with more parmesan on the table and nothing else.