Magnificent Taglierini del Magnifico from La Cucina Del Garga

This dish was created by Guiliano Gargani for his restaurant, Garga, in Florence Italy.  In one of my recent blogs about our trip to Italy I mentioned Sharon Gargani's cookbook called Once Upon a Tuscan Table. 

She writes the following about this recipe in her book:

The inspiration for this pasta came from a simple citrus cake eaten during Carneval - the season between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday.  During the Renaissance, citrus fruits were a status symbol in Florence:  the climate being too cold to grow oranges and lemons outdoors in winter, a greenhouse or limonaia (an orangerie in France) was required.  Naturally, only the wealthy had such accommodations. We named the pasta 'Magnifico' after Lorenzo il Magnifico. 

Lorenzo il Magnifico

Here's the delicious pasta recipe that FHFB and I made during our class. 

As you can see, my abilities to manipulate scans is yet to be developed. 

Please forgive all of the extra space under the recipe. 



If you have trouble reading this just email me and I'll send you a clearer copy!

  

Below, you can see that I am beginning to make the pasta dough.  This is a basic recipe for homemade pasta dough - it's included in the first part of the Taglierini del Magnifico recipe. 

I've made pasta dough like this before, after watching FHFB's mother and sisters make in on their kitchen table in New Brunswick, NJ.  Watching them begin to make the pasta with a well of luscious light yellow semolina flour with eggs cracked into the middle (one egg per person) was always one of those mysterious Italian skills that I never thought I'd be able to do.   

Sharon showed us how to beat the eggs with a fork while gathering in the flour along the sides of the well, until all of it was incorporated. 

You can see the stainless pasta machine clamped to the side of the work table above.  This is a very basic and easy pasta machine to work with, and it has different settings for flattening the pasta dough and then cutting it into the desired size (such as spaghetti, linguine, fettucine or taglierini). 

After we flattened the dough and rolled it through the pasta machine, this is what it looked like. 

Isn't this a cool looking pasta dryer??

I think that I was just sitting there(and drinking that delicious white wine it appears!) admiring all of our hard work.  Sharon looks busy in the background, doesn't she??

The sauce was made separately in a large pan on the stove by FHFB.






Sharon has a mirror placed directly behind the stovetop.  She uses this to show specific techniques to larger groups of clients

I don't know about you, but I would never be able to keep this mirror as clean as Sharon does! 

This citrus sauce is really so delicious.  The ingredients are pretty basic, but I believe it's the quality of the citrus that will make or break the sauce.  Sharon recommends using only organic citrus - and of course the sweet Sicilian oranges in her kitchen were just so delicious! 

After we zested the oranges Sharon pulled out a small citrus juicer and made some fresh orange juice. It was so delicious (there's that word again) that I purchased a small citrus juicer from Black and Decker when I got home.  This little juicer is just right for us (we have one that attaches to our food processor but it's used for when we are juicing tons of lemons for our Rao's Lemon Chicken recipe!)   This little juicer is so easy to use - we use 2 oranges for each glass of juice.  I would normally eat an orange for the benefits of all that fiber but I have to admit that the juice is just so refreshing. 

I do hope that you try this very delicious recipe. 

We served it here at Frog Hollow Farm with Grilled Salmon and Roasted Asparagus. 

I'm hooking up with Seasonal Sundays at The Tablescaper. 

Ciao, bella!

Katie and FHFB in front of the Duomo in Florence.

Ciao, bella!!

xxoo