It’s a Pasta Lover Recipe: “Rintrocilo Pasta”. Pasta making in Abruzzo it’s a deliciously beloved heritage, prepared with the purest mountain springs water, by the expert hands of local families...

Here we’ll talk about a very special type: the Rintrocilo Pasta aka “Maccheroni al rintrocilo” [mac-ke-ró-ni al rin-trò-ci-lo].

Meet the tool to make rintrocilo pasta. It’s a toothed rolling pin, about 10 cm long, formed by deep grooves that function as “pasta cutter”.

Typical of the Abruzzo traditional foods, it’s a chewy pasta dish, usually seasoned with a variety of meat ragù – from veal, pork, turkey, chicken, goose, rabbit, lamb, mutton, to bacon, sausages, livers, veal tongue. Stewed with an assortment of leek, onion, garlic, juniper, marjoram, thyme, porcini mushrooms, and cruncy “crusco” pepper.

It is a long pasta – a kind of thick spaghetto (closer to the Japanese udon), that requires a longish prepping time: from the dough, to the rolling out and cutting it with the rintrocilo maker. A particular toothed rolling pin, approximately 10 cm long, formed by deep grooves that function as “pasta cutter”.

It has a certain resemblance to egg-based “guitar’s strings” pasta: durum wheat semolina, water and salt, without the eggs. Let Sara illustrate her recipe.

Demi-wholemeal durum wheat flour, youn onions, asparagus, black truffle, crusco (crispy) red pepper…

“When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s ‘The Thieving Magpie,’ which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.” (Haruki Murakami)

My recipe is a light spring version of the classic. For pasta consistency and flavour, I used a semi-wholemeal durum wheat flour (a combination of type 0 + 00 flours), instead of the classic 100% durum wheat semolina.

The maccheroni are going to be served with an asparagus cream, some freshly shaved black truffle, and a pinch of crusco (crispy) red pepper. All ingredients are produced in Abruzzo.

Recipe: Sara’s Rintrocilo pasta, with asparagus cream and black truffle

[servings: 6 portions; time: 2 hours 45 minutes; difficulty: medium]
| Please note that the info and directions provided for the recipe are indicative: the end result may vary from person to person |

Ingredients

• 700 g of semi-wholemeal durum wheat flour
• 350 g of warm water
• 30 g salt
• 1 bunch of asparagus (about 450 g)
• 1 fresh onion
• 1 fresh black truffle
• Crusco (cruncy) sweet pepper strips (the ones from Altino area are the best)
• Salt and Pepper to taste.
• Oil to taste (*)

About the oils (*) – unless otherwise specified, we use the organic and cold-pressed type of sunflower seed oil, or extra virgin olive oil.

Directions

1. Pour the flour onto a wooden board and create a well, add the salt and the warm water.
2. Start kneading slowly, than vigorously until you obtain a smooth and homogeneous dough, it will take about half an hour (30 min). Form a loaf and leave it to rest for about an hour (1 hour).
3. Meanwhile, thinly slice the fresh onion, clean the asparagus with a potato peeler to remove the hard parts, and blanch them for a few minutes in some hot salted water.
4. Slice the asparagus, and leave some of the tips whole to be kept aside for later.
5. In a large pan, fry the onion and, as soon as it’s wilted, add the blanched asparagus; season with salt, pepper, than add a few ladles of broth or boiling water.
6. Leave to cook until the asparagus has become soft, (about 20 minutes), then add the tips and let them cook for a further couple of minutes. Keep aside a few asparagus tips for decoration.
7. Discard all the juice and, with an immersion blender, blend the asparagus until creamy; if necessary add few spoonfuls of hot water.
8. Let’s go back to the dough. Cut it into few pieces, and roll them out (with the regular rolling pin), sprinkling them often with flour. You will have to get a rectangular-shaped sheet, about ½ cm thick; should be of the same length of the rintrocilo rolling pin.
9. For each sheet, pass the notched rolling pin, firmly pressing; help yourself with a fork to detach the pastry from the grooves.

To serve

• Boil the pasta in abundant salted water, drain and sauté them in the pan with the asparagus cream.
• Serve the rintrocilo pasta with the asparagus tips kept aside, a few strips of sweet crusco (cruncy) pepper and a generous dose of black truffle flakes.

Here’s a very interesting link to pasta history and techiniques from Abruzzi

More for Pasta Lovers!

February, Keep Calm and Make Pasta Fresca… Open Celery!

Keep reading

Baked Conchiglioni with Plant-Based Pumpkin Ragout

Keep reading

Ode to Stuffed Pasta: the Sardinian Culurgiones

Keep reading

ockstyle

I’m an Italian gluten-free Gourmet Traveler+ and a passionate storyteller, writing in English and Italian. Fluently speaking (eating and dreaming) in Italian, English, French, and Russian. When I’m not writing, I cook and test recipes for special diets, and photograph (also on film). Not necessarily in that order. — / — Sono una viaggiatrice buongustaia (la Gourmet Traveler+) senza glutine, appassionata narratrice di storie. Scrivo in italiano e inglese, parlo (mangio e sogno) fluentemente in italiano, inglese, francese e russo. Quando non scrivo, cucino, testo ricette dolci e salate per diete speciali, fotografo (anche in pellicola). Non necessariamente in quest’ordine.