Pappardelle

Pappardelle are egg pasta cut into ribbons 20 to 30mm wide and 0.8 to 1mm thick. They have the highest surface-to-weight ratio of any long pasta in Italian cooking, and that single fact explains everything about how they are used.

A wide ribbon works by draping, not by clinging. Where a spaghetto needs a sauce that forms a film, and a ridged tube needs a sauce that parks in its grooves, a pappardella physically wraps the piece of meat: the ribbon folds around a chunk of boar or a thick slice of porcini and holds it by contact. It is the only Italian shape that carries a coarsely chunky ragù without the sauce sliding off and pooling.

The trade-off is that pappardelle need fat. Two broad faces of egg pasta pressed together with nothing between them weld into a single mass, which is why a lean or watery sauce produces a compacted, unpleasant plate. The Tuscan ragùs served with them (boar, hare, duck, rabbit) are all long-simmered sauces full of dissolved collagen and suspended fat. That is not a coincidence of tradition. It is a mechanical requirement.

The name comes from pappare, to eat with relish, and appears in Tuscan writing as early as the sixteenth century. It is festival food from a farming kitchen: eggs, flour, and whatever game there was.

Rich, eggy and substantial. Because the ribbon is thicker than tagliatelle, you get a real chew, and because it is wide you get a mouthful of pasta and sauce in the same bite rather than a strand carrying a coating. The egg comes through clearly: good pappardelle taste faintly of custard before the sauce takes over.

Hand-rolled sfoglia has a matte, slightly rough surface that grips fat; machine-laminated sheets are smoother and slicker, and the sauce slides on them. If a plate of pappardelle arrives with the ragù sitting underneath rather than clinging, the pasta is usually the reason.

The wavy edge you often see is not only decorative. Cut with a fluted wheel, it adds surface and helps stop the ribbons welding to each other, which is a real problem with a shape this wide.

Fresh pappardelle cook in two to four minutes, dried egg nests in five to eight. Use plenty of salted water and drop the nests in whole: they open by themselves within thirty seconds.

Do not tip them into a colander. Lift the ribbons out with tongs or a carving fork straight into the pan of sauce, carrying a little cooking water with them.

The pan stage is short but essential: thirty to forty seconds over a lively flame, moving the pan, with a ladle of pasta water to melt the ragù's fat and emulsify it. That film of emulsified fat is what keeps the ribbons from welding together, which on a shape this wide is the difference between a plate of pasta and a single mass.

Use long-simmered, fatty, chunky meat sauces. Wild boar cooked two or three hours with red wine, juniper and bay. Hare, which is the oldest version. The Aretine duck ragù. Rabbit, lamb, oxtail. In autumn, thick-sliced porcini in butter and garlic, which work better on a wide ribbon than on any other shape.

What fails is anything thin, lean or finely chopped: clams, aglio e olio, fresh tomato. There is nothing for the ribbon to wrap, the plate stays dry and the pasta sticks to itself.

Dried egg nests in a sealed box keep to the best before date printed on the pack, usually one to two years out, stored in a dry cupboard away from heat and light. Once the box is open, move what is left into an airtight jar: the ribbons are hygroscopic and pull moisture out of a humid kitchen, which softens them and makes them fray in the water. Fresh refrigerated pappardelle are a different animal, sold with a short date and kept cold in the sealed pack, with a matter of days once opened.

Egg pasta changes in ways plain semolina does not. The fat in the yolk oxidises slowly, so a very old box smells faintly of cardboard, and the yellow fades towards beige. Nests left loose become brittle and shatter into fragments when handled. Fresh sheets and ribbons are best frozen rather than refrigerated for long: dust them with semolina, coil them into loose nests, freeze on a tray until firm, then bag them, and cook from frozen with an extra minute. They hold two to three months that way. The date on the pack is the reference.

Width is the first check: pappardelle run two to three centimetres, roughly an inch, which is visibly wider than tagliatelle at six to eight millimetres and wider than fettuccine. Anything narrower on a pack labelled pappardelle is mislabelled. In Tuscany one long edge is often fluted rather than straight, cut with a fluted wheel; both versions are traditional. The surface tells you about the die: a rough, chalky, matte finish means bronze extrusion and sauce clings to it, while a smooth glassy ribbon has come off a teflon die and sheds sauce.

Then read the ingredients. Real egg pasta lists soft wheat flour or durum semolina plus eggs, and the Italian benchmark is 200 grams of egg per kilo of flour, about four eggs. Colour is not proof: a deep orange ribbon can come from many yolks or from added carotene, so check whether the list ends at flour and eggs. Fresh refrigerated packs, dried nests and artisanal dried boxes are all legitimate, but priced differently. In the US, supermarket nests run $3 to $5 for 250 grams while bronze die Tuscan brands sit at $8 to $14.

In the US, dried egg pappardelle from De Cecco, Delverde and Rustichella d'Abruzzo run $5 to $9 a pound in supermarkets and Italian groceries; artisan nests from Cipriani, Morelli and Martelli go for $10 to $18 a pound at Eataly, Gustiamo and Market Hall Foods. Fresh pappardelle from a pasta counter costs $8 to $16 a pound.

In the UK, Waitrose and Ocado stock dried egg pappardelle at £8 to £14 per kilo, and Natoora, Vorrei and Italian delis sell artisan nests and fresh ribbons at £16 to £30 per kilo.

In Italy, fresh pappardelle from a pastificio cost €8 to €16 per kilo, supermarket dried egg pasta €4 to €7, and artisan dried nests €8 to €16.

On dried pasta, look for the number of eggs per kilo on the label, where four is the legal minimum and seven or eight signals a serious product, and for durum semolina as the base. Check the nests through the window: cracks along the outer folds mean the pasta was dried too fast and will break apart in the pot.

In Chianti and the Maremma, where the autumn wild boar festivals between October and November are still the best place to eat them. Village associations in Cinigiano, Roccastrada, Greve and Panzano roll them by hand in industrial quantities and serve them at canteen prices.

In Arezzo and the Valdichiana for pappardelle sulla nana, the muscovy duck version, which is almost impossible to find outside the province and remains the Sunday dish in village trattorie.

In the Casentino, the inland valley above Arezzo, hare ragù is still the most traditional version and the hunting season dictates the menus.

At San Miniato, between Florence and Pisa, during the November white truffle fair, pappardelle become the vehicle for the local truffle: butter, almost nothing else, and shavings in quantity.