We booked an Airbnb pasta-making experience for our first night in Rome, which promised us the opportunity to make homemade pasta in a Roman kitchen setting. After dropping off our bags and checking into our Airbnb, we zigzagged across Rome on foot to the apartment where the class was held. We arrived just in time and were pleasantly surprised to find we were the only people who had signed up for tonight’s class.
Over the next 2-plus hours, we learned how to make a classic egg pasta dough, consisting of Italian flour, an egg, and a tablespoon of olive oil. We mixed the pasta together slowly and then learned how to alternate folding and flattening as we formed individual balls to combine to use for the two pasta shapes. After our pasta sat in the fridge, we learned how to use the pasta maker to form tagliatelle and a thin dough we could cut out to make cappelletti.
Fiorella assisted Noah with the pasta maker.
The tagliatelle was accompanied by a fantastic tomato sauce, made of tomatoes we chopped along with olive oil and a little bit of leek and garlic, cooked, then blended with an immersion blender. We filled the cappelletti with a mix of ricotta cheese and chopped-up mortadella, which was then served with a sauce made with leftover pasta water, pecorino cheese, and black pepper.
Noah was responsible for mixing the cappelletti filling.
My collection of cappelletti.
The host Fiorella was thoughtful and helpful, involving us in nearly every step of the process except cooking the sauce and pasta on her stovetop. The ingredients were fresh, the presentation was amazing, and we thoroughly enjoyed both the experience and the meal. While both kinds of pasta were among the best we had in Italy, we all liked the tagliatelle the best.
