The handmade dough that comes from tradition
The use of puff pastry as we understand it today is already documented shortly after the year 1000 even in Emilia Romagna.
I must specify that it is not a product that we can define as typically Emilian since it is common to many other regions of Italy.
Anyway, the puff pastry from Emilia Romagna has qualities that cannot be found in other types of puff pastry.
The pasta I'm talking about, of course, is egg pasta, without salt and without water, for which four eggs are needed for every half kilo of "00" type flour, and which requires hand-made processing with a cutting board and rolling pin. .
You must know that, with the planetary or other machines, although it is acceptable, the puff pastry becomes too smooth and does not hold the sauce.
To roll the dough, a rolling pin is used, which in the Emilia Romagna dialect is called: La canéla.
To get a good result and work efficiently, the rolling pin must be as long as possible.
In this way, whoever prepares the puff pastry is able to best measure his strength. The woman who prepares the puff pastry in the dialect of Emilia Romagna is called "sfoglina".
To cut the pasta you need a special pasta knife, quite heavy and with a typical rectangular shape. In the Emilia Romagna dialect it is called: cortlén’na da pasta or cortlén’na da pàn.
How to prepare the puff pastry
To prepare the Emilian puff pastry you need to place the flour on a wooden pastry board (cutting board, editor's note).
Then you have to break the eggs in its center and then, slowly, starting from the edges bring the flour in the middle.
Then proceed to the dough by first squeezing the dough and working the mixture a lot with the palms of your hands.
To get a better result, I suggest you work the dough vigorously by placing your entire weight on it, first on the right wrist, then on the left, continuing alternately.
Remember to sprinkle a little flour on the cutting board every now and then, wash and dry your hands carefully to prevent lumps from forming during processing, which would prevent the formation of a smooth dough.
After 15 minutes of work you should have obtained a homogeneous mixture.
At this point cover the puff pastry with a clean cloth and let it rest for one or two hours at room temperature, being careful not to leave any drafts.
After resting, roll the dough onto the pastry board with a rolling pin.
Tip: Before rolling out the puff pastry, flour both tools well.
Turn the dough often using the canéla and pull it until you have made everything so transparent that you can see the shape of your hand through the dough.
Note that from four eggs and 500 g of flour type "00", after all this work, a thin round of about 80 cm in diameter must come out.
For those who love green pasta, instead of an egg I recommend adding two ounces of boiled and then squeezed spinach or the same amount of herbs. Both vegetables are placed in the center of the finely chopped flour fountain.
CONCLUSION
I hope you enjoyed the journey to discover this dough at the base of many typical products of the culinary tradition of Emilia Romagna.
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Ciao and bye bye,
Mamma Rosa
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