Chef notes
This is a very traditional dish for New Year's Eve enjoyed across Italy; the round shape of the lentils and cotechino are said to resemble coins, ushering in a year of prosperity and good fortune. While a traditional New Year's Eve dish associated with luck and good fortune, this is a pasta that can be made all year long using staples found in your pantry; it's also very affordable. Beluga lentils are a festive touch here as they're named for and resemble beluga caviar.
Technique tip: When rolling your pasta, you want to keep feeding the sheets through the pasta roller until you can start to see the outline of your hand on the other side. Stracci translates to "rags" in Italian, which speaks to their loosely cut / torn shape; for this reason, they're very forgiving and don't need to be perfectly shaped. The starch from the pasta water is always a great thickening agent when marrying the pasta with the sauce; butter also works to meld all the flavors together
Swap options: Cotechino is eaten all throughout Italy on New Year's Eve and can be found at Italian specialty stores; if you can't find Cotechino, you can easily substitute sweet Italian sausage and finish the dish off with some shaved nutmeg to mimic the spices typically found in Cotechino. If you're not up for making your own pasta, dried rigatoni or orecchiette would work well. You could also buy fresh lasagna sheets and cut them into triangular shapes to mimic stracci. This could also be an easy vegetarian substitute, removing the Cotechino and using vegetable stock instead of chicken stock (Beyond Meat-type products would work well too)
Special equipment: Rolling pin and pasta roller (ideally electric but hand crank works too).
Ingredients
- 3¼ cups "00" flour
- 20 egg yolks
- 1 splash water
- 1 pound cotechino
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- 1 pound lentils, cooked in chicken stock according to package directions
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon aged balsamic
- 1 ounce Parmigiano, shaved
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 sprigs thyme
Preparation
For the pasta:
1.Place flour on a workspace and create a well that's 4 to 5 inches in diameter. Add about half of the egg yolks to the flour well and begin mixing yolks using a fork, slowly incorporating the inner layers of flour to the yolk mixture. Continue adding the rest of the yolks and continue mixing yolks with flour until you have a mixture that is thick enough to start kneading.
2.Continue kneading until the dough becomes firm, adding a tablespoon of water to loosen the mixture if it starts to feel too dry. Knead until dough mixture is smooth and relatively firm, about 8 minutes.
3.Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 30 minutes; dough can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours.
4.Cut your dough into quarters.
5.Dust your surface with flour and begin rolling dough into an oval shape, about 1/2-inch-thick
6.Using your pasta roller, feed sheets into the roller, adjusting the width of the press as you go. Roll dough until it's in a long, thin sheet; just translucent enough to see the outside of your hand.
7.Cut the thin pasta sheet into triangles that are about four inches long by two inches tall, with a slight curve on one of the sides to resemble a shark fin
For the sauce:
1.Crumble the Cotechino sausage and add to a sauté pan with the olive oil.
2.Once sausage starts to caramelize and brown, 3 to 4 minutes, add sliced garlic and cook until toasted and fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.
3.Add the cooked beluga lentils and chicken stock, bring to a simmer over low heat.
To assemble:
1.Meanwhile, cook pasta in salted water until done (dried pasta should cook until just al dente)
2.Once cooked, add pasta to the pan and add butter to help the sauce emulsify.
3.Plate the pasta and garnish with a drizzle of aged balsamic, shaved parmigiano, black pepper and thyme.
