Stephencooks

I considered several versions and then went into the kitchen to see how my ingredients stock stacked up against the recipes I'd read. I found that I only had 9 eggs. I decided to use 3 of them whole -- since whole eggs are usually part of egg noodle pasta, I knew that would be okay - to extend the liquid component a little beyond what would be available with just 9 yolks.* But since I didn't know how much flour to use for that amount of eggs, I did it by feel: I mounded about 2 cups of flour on my board, made a well in the mound, tossed in two teaspoons of salt, added the eggs and yolks and started mixing them together. This process is always rather comical, with the eggs breaking through the dyke and making a run for the edge of the board, and me trying to contain it by means of forkloads of flour and frantic finger maneuvers. Even when I'm alone in the kitchen doing this I whoop and holler and laugh out loud in the thirty seconds it takes to regain control over my ingredients.

I added flour to the mix by one-third cups until it felt like pasta dough (total flour used: about 2-2/3 C) and then followed the usual fresh-pasta routine:  knead ten minutes, wrap and rest for half an hour, stretch with the pasta machine, progressively through narrower and narrower gaps, until it reaches the correct thinness (I had read somewhere that tajarin is very thin so I took it to notch 8, the next to last), dry on towels for 15-20 minutes on a side and then cut into strands with the pasta machine (I used the tagliatelle cutter, about 3/16" wide, since one of the 'net recipes I read suggested 1/8" width). 

Helen had also sent me the Steingarten suggestion for a sage butter sauce for tajarin, which I adapted as follows:

8 T butter
12 large sage leaves, rough chop
Salt and hot sauce, to taste
1 T grated Permeggiano Reggiano
2 T strained gravy from the braised lamb shanks I made the same day
1 T white truffle oil

Melt butter, add sage and simmer, stirring, for 10 minutes until butter is nut brown, 10 - 20 minutes. Strain and mix in cheese and broth. Toss pasta in the sauce, drizzle with truffle oil and turn into warmed serving platter. Garnish with fresh sage leaves.

The tajarin was served alongside the braised lamb shanks, which seemed to be a perfect Fall pairing, though I'm eager to try Helen's suggestion of braised rabbit soon. As promised, the pasta was a warm yellow, and the texture was extremely light and springy in the mouth. Thanks Helen, for inspiration and guidance to a wonderful treat!

__________________________

* At the American Egg Board's very useful and informative site, Learn More About Eggs, I learned that the yolk is about 1/3 the volume of an egg. That means that by using 3 whole eggs and 6 yolks I used the equivalent, by volume, of 15 yolks. Why my flour component turned out to be about the same as Steingarten's, in spite of the fact that I was using less egg, I can't explain. As mentioned, my version seemed light and springy, but perhaps Steingarten's are even lighter. I guess I'd have to make his to find out, but I'm still balking at the idea of twenty yolks! (How many meringues can you make before your family starts plotting an intervention? One recipe I have says you can make six meringue nests with one white, so twenty whites would yield 120 of them! Or I could make macaroons, which yield 8 cookies from one white, or 160 from the 20 yolks. Yikes!)