Shaping Trenette Pasta

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We’re leading up to another dish that comes from our trip to New York, so bear with us. Today we’re going to make a new pasta shape: trenette. We’re always on the lookout for new pasta shapes to make, and this one’s pretty easy. As easy as fettuccine, mainly because it seems to be nothing more than a thicker version of fettuccine.

But, it’s a traditional shape from Genoa and Liguria, and it’s often paired with pesto. If you have a pasta machine, as we do, it’s really easy to make this shape. To get some idea of how easy, see the photos below; however, you could also do it by hand: simply roll the pasta dough to about the thickness of a penny and cut into narrow strips using a chef’s knife.  For our pasta, we used an eggless pasta dough, made from half Sonora white wheat and half all-purpose flour.

pasta sheet
Roll the sheets of pasta to the thickness of a penny.
cutting trenette
Run the sheets through the fettuccine cutter.
close up of trenette
You can see that these are fairly thick pieces of pasta.
drying pasta
Let the pasta dry for a while before cooking to make it easier to handle.

Naturally, these don’t taste any different from other pasta, although, with the additional thickness, they do have a bit more “chew” to them. Next time you need a pasta to have with pesto, consider making up trenette. As with almost all scratched pastas, trenette earns cinque stelle.

Worth the trouble?

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