In Deruta: Giuseppa’s Homemade Pasta….with a Kiss

In the Deruta countryside, Giuseppa opens home and heart to all.

When you arrive, Giuseppa comes out of her house, perhaps with her two beloved Jack Russells and that welcoming smile says it all:

On a recent visit there to video Giuseppa cooking up Umbria goodness, we stopped first to see the prosciutti aging in the cellar steps away from the entrance to her home:

Giuseppa was going to make fresh homemade fettuccine for us so we headed out to the chicken coop for the eggs. We passed the pepper plant on our way there: from Morocco, the tree had been a gift years ago and the pepper leaves are often used by Giuseppa to season roasts – in the place of black pepper.

What an enticing peppery perfume from those leaves:

Giuseppa’s chickens had been generous that day:

Those fresh eggs would be perfetto for pasta-making:

Son Loris’ ten dogs trained to hunt wild boar were nearby and greeted us with yapping enthusiasm, eager for caresses and attention:

We headed back into Giuseppa’s farmhouse for pasta-making. First step: preparation of the sauce. Giuseppa had decided to make l’amatriciana highlighted with pancetta (bacon).

This cooking event would be kilometro zero (the Italian term for “farm-to-table”) all the way. As I mentioned this to Giuseppa, she chuckled, saying that our meal would be “metri zero” as everything she would be using came from just a few meters away: either from their garden or the stalls where pigs, rabbits, chickens were raised.

She sliced her family’s pancetta (bacon) for the sauce, the white onion (to be diced) nearby:

Giuseppa sautéed the diced onion until “biondo” (“blond,” i.e., “golden”) and then added the diced pancetta:

She simmered the bacon and onion a few moments in a covered stainless steel pan, her tomato sauce nearby…..

…and then added the sauce and left the pan uncovered to simmer:

….and ah, che sughetto (“what a yummy sauce”)!

Time to make the pasta and Giuseppa had all the ingredients ready on a nearby table:

First step, making a well with the flour. How much flour? Q. B. “quanto basta” (“as much as you need”):

Giuseppa used seven eggs and broke the eggs into the well, then mixed with the flour. I’d like you to see this in action – and we will soon post the video on this which my able young companion, Sonia, made for me that day. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here are a few photos of the pasta-making, starting with the making of the dough:

….and Giuseppa was ready to roll out the dough:

And that pressure with the wrists, so essential:

:…..and as Giuseppa rolled the pasta, what memories I had of making all of our pasta years ago (long before the arrival of three children and running an English school!):

What nostalgia: I just had to give a roll again with that stenderello (as our farm neighbors near Assisi called it – for Giuseppa, that long wooden rolling pin is a rasagnolo, the Perugia-area name), remembering to put rolling pressure with the wrists:

…and before long, la sfoglia (the sheet of pasta) was ready to be dried a bit before cutting. As Giuseppa spread out the dough to dry on the table, I reminisced with her about drying the sfoglia on a cloth spread out on our bed. She laughed and said that she dries the dough on her guest bed, too, when making more than a single sfoglia.

The pasta was soon ready for cutting. Giuseppa sprinkled it with flour and then rolled it up, cutting the roll swiftly with a sharp knife:

…

Then she lifted the cut rolls and ribbons of fettuccine unfurled:

The fettuccine ribbons were coiled together into nests, each one a portion:

After Giuseppa finished making the fettuccine, she kissed the pasta as her mother and grandmother had done: an augurio for the good health of each one eating the pasta:

A large pot of water was already boiling on the stove and Giuseppa soon slipped a few fettuccine coils into the pot.

After a few minutes of cooking, she drained the pasta, mixed in the amatriciana sauce and sprinkled on parmigiano. Behind her on her woodstove, la torta al testo was heating – our second course.

(Read how to make la torta here.)