Holy ravioli! Andreas Papadakis, chef and co-owner of landmark Italian restaurant Tipo 00, has filled the pages of his debut book with the recipes for Melbourne’s best-loved pasta. From orecchiette with cime di rapa, anchovy and pangrattato to a hitherto-unseen Tipo lasagne, and a ricotta bombolone with, wait for it, fennel cream, you now have everything you need to create your own slice of Italian (via Little Bourke Street) paradise at home. Here’s Papadakis with how to get the most out of the book.
If this is your first time making pasta try the garganelli with ragù Bolognese. It takes a bit of time to individually roll the garganelli but the shape is forgiving even if your squares aren’t perfect.
The easiest recipe in the book is spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino. Not only the easiest recipe but one of my favourites as well.
And if you like to challenge yourself, you might try orecchiette with cime di rapa, anchovy and pangrattato. While the sauce is really simple, shaping the orecchiette takes quite a bit of practice and is also time consuming.
There’s also more to it than pasta. You might also like to try the ricotta bombolone with fennel cream. This is not a traditional brioche-style dough – it’s very easy to make and really delicious.
The main thing I learned writing it was that a recipe is never done. I’ve written countless recipes throughout the years and in a commercial kitchen it’s pretty straightforward and quite mathematical. But when I started documenting the recipes for the book I just kept trialling and changing, keeping in mind that every household, and its access to produce, is different.
Something that might surprise you about making pasta yourself is how easy it actually is. Once you’ve done it a couple times in your own kitchen and feel comfortable with the recipe, making the dough and rolling the pasta, it’s surprisingly quick and easy.
The books I refer to most often when I’m cooking in my own kitchen are…
– Thai Food by David Thompson
– Ottolenghi: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi
– The Tivoli Road Baker by Michael James
If you could take one thing away from Tipo 00, I hope it is understanding how to mix and roll pasta dough.
Tipo 00: The Pasta Cookbook (Murdoch Books, RRP $49.99) is available now, and is stocked among other places at excellent Victorian bookshops such as Paperback Bookshop, Hill of Content and Readings.