Super quick and utterly delicious, this tagliolini al limone is the epitome of spring!🍋🍋
Recipe by Silvia Colloca!
Ingredients:
Tagliolini
- 400 g (2 2/3 cups) type 00 flour
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- salt flakes
- coarse semolina, for dusting
for the sauce
- 50 gr of butter
- 50 gr of fresh grated parmesan cheese
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
- salt for seasoning
- freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
- finely grated zest of 1 lemon
- baby basil leaves
Method:
- To make the tagliolini, place the flour on a board, make a well in the centre and drop in the eggs and 1 scant teaspoon salt. Combine using your fingers or a fork, then knead the mixture vigorously for about 10 minutes.
- At first it will look crumbly, but once your body heat activates the starch in the flour, the dough will change its texture, turning into a smooth, firm ball.
- If you want to speed things up, you can mix the dough in a food processor in under 2 minutes. Process the ingredients until they resemble wet sand, then tip onto a floured board, bring together with your hands and knead for 1 minute.
- When dough is mixed, wrap it in beeswax wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. (Using store-bought egg tagliolini is absolutely fine, too, by the way).
- After the dough has rested it will feel elastic and very pliable. Dust your board with semolina, then cut the dough into quarters. Work with one piece at a time and keep the rest wrapped to prevent it from drying out.
- Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand, then pass it through your pasta machine’s widest setting three or four times, folding the dough into three each time.
- Continue passing the dough through the machine (no further folding required), each time through a thinner setting until you get to the second-last setting or the sheet is roughly 2.5 mm thick.
- Finally, pass the sheet through the spaghetti cutter. Gently place the cut noodles on a floured tea towel, dust with the semolina and allow to dry slightly at room temperature.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. In the meantime melt the butter in a large pan. Drop the pasta into the pot of boiling water, stir and cook for 2 minutes (if using fresh tagliolini, more if using dry pasta). Lift the tagliolini with tongs and top straight into the pan with the melted butter. Toss to combine.
- Off the heat add lemon juice, parmesan cheese and stir to combine, adding a little extra pasta cooking water if needed, to create a creamy texture.
- Serve hot with baby basil leaves and lemon zest.