Pasta Tagliata a Mano
(Unedited)
Tagliata a mano means cut by hand. If your machine or your chitarra doesn’t give you the width you want, you can always use a sharp knife to cut them to whatever width you want. For example, you might be making pappardelle, which are 20-30mm wide.
You can also use a long rolling pin to roll out a big sheet of pasta. See Pasta al Mattarello for details.
1. Follow the steps for making the Pasta all’Uovo until it tells you to come back here. The final thickness is up to you.
2. Cut the piece of rolled-out dough to the desired length.
3. Put a thin layer of semola on the dough so that it won’t stick when you roll it up. You can also dry the pasta for, say, 15 minutes.
4. You can roll it up either by:
a. folding it over loosely so that it comes out about 4” wide
b. folding it up more like an accordion (S-shaped folds, again loosely) also about 4” wide
c. ideally, you fold up two sides toward the center, but the entire width needs to be less than the length of your knife; after you cut the pasta, you'll be able to slip a long, thin knife under the noodles and lift them up and let them unfold (very fun, there's a picture of this over at Pasta al Mattarello).
5. Cut the pasta using a sharp knife. Here are some guidelines for what to call it:
a. Tagliolini: 2-3mm, and thinner than these others
b. Linguine: 2.7-3.2mm
c. Fettuccine: 3-5mm
d. Tagliatelle: 4-10mm, but the Bologna pasta gods say 6.5-7mm
e. Pappardelle: 10-20mm
6. Grab the strands of pasta and unfold them.
7. Place the unfolded strands ideally on a pasta rack. Alternatively, you can fold them up into little nests.
8. Another technique I've used is to not roll up the pasta at all. Instead, use a pasta cutter-roller's straight edge. The width won't be uniform, but it probably doesn't matter and it might be a little faster this way for the wider pastas like pappardelle or tagliatelle.