We’ve been wanting to make corzetti, but we couldn’t see purchasing a corzetti stamp. It’s not as if we’d be making corzetti all that often, and the handmade stamps seem to cost at least $30. That’s a lot for something so specialized. Perhaps if we can pick up a used corzetti stamp someplace, we might consider it, but, for right now, we’ll just have to make do with what we have. In this case, custard cups. Really. Custard cups.
Corzetti are pasta disks that are normally pressed in a corzetti stamp to emboss some sort of design, often something like a stalk of wheat, on one side, and concentric circles on the other. And, while we could easily enough make simple disks without a design, we knew that the embossing helps hold sauce. And sauce-holding pasta is what it’s all about. So, we wanted a design. Thinking about it, we knew that the bottoms of our custard cups are embossed; plus, they’re the right size for making corzetti! The idea of Corzetti by Pyrex was born.
This is really a quick tutorial in shaping corzetti (or croxetti, or one of another dozen or so spellings), so we’re mainly going to show you how to make them, using a single batch of our standard fresh pasta dough. Now, you might have to search your house for something that will emboss pasta disks; a couple of suggestions: the back of a clean half dollar coin (or even two), a quick press into a finely ribbed surface (a clean comb, perhaps) with the bottom of a glass, or, well, search around and you’ll find just the thing to make your own stamp.
Roll dough. We took the easy way out and set up our pasta machine to roll out the dough, but, don’t worry, a rolling pin will work, too. The dough might be a little thicker, or not as even, but that’s all part of handmade pasta: each piece is unique. We rolled out our dough until it was about 1/16 of an inch thick.
Cut circles. We used a biscuit cutter that’s about 1 1/2 inches across. While it’s probably not traditional, we liked that the edges are slightly ruffled. And, why not? Ruffles add interest.
Stamp. Once we cut a disk, we placed it on an upside-down custard cup, placed another custard cup on top, and pressed. Lo and behold, the Pyrex trademark!
Dry. As you press the disks, place them on a drying rack covered with a clean towel. Let them dry, anywhere from an hour to half a day, before boiling. And, remember, fresh pasta takes less time to cook than commercial dried pasta, so, when you do cook it up, check it early and often.
These shapes are often served with a pesto sauce, but we’re probably going with a tomato-based sauce tonight. Out of a single batch of the pasta dough (about a half-pound of dough) we ended up with about 50 corzetti. Naturally, they’ll taste the same as if we’d made linguine, but they’ll look, oh, so much cooler. Five stars.