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 quite wide.
Here are the widths of various types of pasta:
Tagliolini: 2-3mm, and thinner than these others
Linguine: 2.7-3.2mm
Fettuccine: 3-5mm
Tagliatelle: 4-10mm, but the Bologna pasta gods say 6.5-7mm
Pappardelle: 10-20mm
Method #1: Using a Long Rolling Pin (Mattarello)
1. Follow the steps for rolling out the pasta at Pasta al Mattarello until it tells you to come back here. The final thickness is up to you.
2. Rest of details coming soon...
Method #2: Using a Pasta Machine (Macchina per Pasta)
3. Follow the steps for rolling out the pasta at Pasta a Macchina until it tells you to come back here. The final thickness is up to you.
4. Cut the piece of rolled-out dough to the desired length.
5. Put a thin layer of base flour on the dough so that it won’t stick when you roll it up. You can also dry the pasta for, say, 15 minutes.
6. 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.
7. Cut the pasta using a sharp knife. See the guidelines above for what to call it based on width.
8. Grab the strands of pasta and unfold them.
9. Place the unfolded strands ideally on a pasta rack. Alternatively, you can fold them up into little nests or lay them out straight. An even simpler thing is to just throw them into a messy, loose pile if you are gonna cook them right after.
10. 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.