Pasta Fresca

As we're walking into town the other day we passed a tiny little shop that I've only given a passing glance to in the past.  This time, it actually was open (there are no open / close times posted) and it seemed like it was a place selling freshly made pasta.  We made a note to go back and check inside sometime.

We have The Little Blue Book here in Perugia, which is a student's guide to town.  We had these when I was at university too, so I'm thinking a Brit may be behind this.  As I'm reading through it again this week, I see that under "Pasta Fresca" (fresh pasta) it tells me that "this is an experience you shouldn't miss" with "fresh pasta made with eggs as well as durum wheat flour".  The only place in town is the one we've seen.  Now a visit is a must.

We stopped in yesterday around noon and asked about the ravioli.  The very nice gentleman told us that he was all out, but tomorrow he would have made more.  We asked what type of ravioli it was, and he said that he would have to see when he got to the market in the morning, as he bought whatever looked good.  Fabulous.  He was speaking Italian most of the time which was great for us, although occasionally he would check in English that we'd understood.

We returned today.   As you can see, it's easy to miss the place...it does not even have a sign outside.

This is the alley leading from the piazza down to the shop

This is the shop itself...clearly marked as you can see

And this is right before we go in...

It turns out that the fresh produce on offer this morning at the market was asparagus (yeah), so we ended up buying half spinach and ricotta, and half asparagus and ricotta.  The guy goes to the market to buy the produce, makes the pasta with what he has bought, and then "around 10 or 10:30" comes to the store to sell it.  

The larger ones are the asparagus and ricotta

The small ones are spinach and ricotta

We had no idea how much to buy or how to cook these, or what sauce to use with them.  As the guy put it "we're in Italy, so we'll speak Italian".  We LOVE it when that happens, and this guy's English is pretty good, so if we looked stumped he'd back up and do it in English.  He proceeds to tell us in Italian how to cook and serve the ravioli.

So, we bought 400 grams of the asparagus and 300 grams of the spinach.  As for cooking, you boil water with a little salt, and then dump the pasta in.  Let the water come back to the boil and cook for FOUR minutes.   Drain.  

The gentleman suggested we then "saute" half in olive oil and half in butter, to see which we liked.  Then you add a little freshly grated parmigiano cheese, for just a minute of cooking.  The olive oil version was supposed to be "wetter" than the butter version (but maybe that was our misunderstanding of Italian).   

You are supposed to eat this the day you buy it, so we had it for dinner tonight, with fagiolini (green beans) cooked in butter with fresh garlic.

The pasta was AMAZING.  The asparagus was better, and the butter saute was better than the oil. 

Ciao,

David