Never heard of croxetti? Here's a recipe for this special type of pasta that is found in the mountains of Liguria.
In the historic mountain town of Varese Ligure in Liguria you will find a workshop on Via Pieve (next door to the Estetica Diamante shop) where Pietro Bicetti makes wooden cutters for croxetti, a local pasta that used to be cooked on special occasions. They say that a local wealthy family once made them for Maria Luigia of Borbone, who was going to France to marry to Napoleon - though some think they date back to the middle ages. Croxetti are pasta discs, stamped with detailed patterns from a mould – this is the secret to their flavour as the more detail there is, the more sauce can be held on the disc. They look a bit like large coins. Dried, factory made croxetti can be bought in some delis but the pattern is much less intricate – and so the flavour is not as intense. Today croxetti are considered a fine example of traditional Italian cuisine.
Pietro Bicetti makes all his cutters by hand from local woods like chestnut, peach, apple and olive. They’re ingenious, with separate sections fitting together to make a sort of stamp. One end acts as a cutter to make the discs (a bit like a pastry cutter) while the central sections contain the intricate carved patterns – some may be leaves and fruit, others people’s initials (very popular as wedding presents). In the past, noble families would have their coats of arms carved into the stamps – so each piece of pasta proclaimed their status. One pattern frequently contained a cross - hence the name croxetti. Each of Pietro’s cutters has two different patterns.
Here is his recipe for making croxetti and the traditional sauce to go with them.
Ingredients:
Pasta:
- 600grm flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 glass of water
- pinch of salt
- 50 grm butter
- 60 gr grated parmesan
Sauce:
100 grm minced veal
- 100 gr minced pork
- 5 tablespoons olive oil
- 100 gr tomatoes- chopped
- 1 onion
- sprig of rosemary
- 2 bay leaves
- pinch of salt
- white pepper
- 1 glass of dry white wine
- 30 dried mushrooms (boletus ideally) – soaked for 5-10 minutes in water
Method
For the ‘croxetti’
Sieve the flour, add the eggs, salt and water, Mix them into a hard pastry, then roll it out with a rolling pin and make a sheet around 2-3 millimetres thick. Use a croxetti stamp (or pastry cutter) to made disc shapes, then impress them with the pattern (if you don’t have a croxetti stamp you could use a decorated butter stamp). Put the pasta discs on a clean cloth covered with flour.
For the sauce:
Finely chop and sauté the onion in the olive oil. Add the meat, salt and pepper and cook for around 10 minutes. Add the wine slowly and cook for another ten minutes. Then add the rosemary, bay leaves and chopped tomatoes. Cook for a few more minutes then add the mushrooms. Simmer for 2 hours.
When the sauce is ready, cook the croxetti in boiling water for 5-6 minutes. When cooked, put them in a serving dish and cover with the sauce, butter and a topping of parmesan.
An alternative vegetarian sauce is made with:
- 150 grm pine nuts
- ½ clove of garlic
- a little olive oil
- some milk
- marjoram
Mix all the ingredients in a mixer, then add 50 grm of butter (beaten with a spoon until frothy) and stir well. Warm the sauce gently before pouring on the croxetti (if it’s too thick add a little more milk).
Local people also make a sauce by slow cooking a piece of meat in a tomato sauce, with vegetables like celery and carrots. They’ll let it cook gently for several hours, then remove the meat from the sauce – and use the sauce with freshly cooked croxetti.
The meat is then sliced and used as a second course, or ground up and used to fill ravioli.
For more information on the area read Liguria's Secret Valley
Recipes for pesto and battuto sauces
