Pasatelli - Bread Noodles in Broth

I recently bought a copy of the "The Italian Farmer's Table." Sunday night I made a recipe from the cookbook that was from one of the oldest cookbooks in Italy: La Scienza in Cucinare l'Arte di Mangiare Bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well). What a great title for a cookbook! Here is the recipe:

1 1/4 cups bread crumbs
1 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano, plus more for garnish
1 T flour
1 t freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
3 eggs
1 quart home-made chicken broth or canned, low-sodium broth

In a large bowl, mix together the bread crumbs and grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Add the flour, the nutmeg, and a pinch each of salt and pepper, and stir to combine.

Add the eggs to the bread crumb mixture and stir until a dough begins to form. (I ran into trouble here. After I added the eggs, I had a very wet mixture instead of a dough. I used fresh bread crumbs, maybe I should have used dry, and my eggs were very large so maybe I should have only used two. At any rate, I just added more bread crumbs and flour until I had a dough-like mixture.) Remove the dough from the bowl and knead until the dough is smooth. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest for at least 20 minutes. (My dough was quite sticky and I put it in a zip lock bag until I was ready to make the soup.)

Bring the chicken broth up to a gentle simmer. Place the dough in a ricer and press the dough into the chicken broth. Cook until the pasatelli double in size. Ladle the soup into shallow bowls and garnish with pepper and Parmigiano Reggiano. Serves 4. (I served 7 with it, but we were having multiple courses so each serving size was a bit smaller than usual.)

Here are pictures of me ricing the dough into the broth.

And here is the finished soup garnished with cheese, pepper and a little chopped Italian parsley.

We all liked it and I hope you do too.

Watch for the recipes for the Secondo, or main course, coming up later this week.