The maltagliati with prosciutto and fava beans is a great spring dish! Tasty, fresh and colorful… perfect for an alfresco family lunch on a sunny day! Find this and many more recipes with pictures on the Giallozafferano App (in English) http://itunes.apple.com/app/giallozafferano-recipes/id384387249?mt=8
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Start with the pasta dough, here I have the sifted flour, make an indentation in the middle and add 3 eggs: crack them into the well, beat with a fork and bring the dough together. I used medium eggs, so I may need to add a little water; I’ll use a rolling pin to roll out the dough, not a pasta machine, so I want the dough to be pretty soft. The ingredients have come together, now transfer to a work surface. Scrape the dough from your hands and knead, until nice and smooth. Perfect! Wrap the dough in cling film and allow to rest for at least half an hour in a cool place, away from drafts.
Move on to the sauce: wash and cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters, then remove the beans from the pods. If small and tender enough, you can save the pods, trim the ends, boil and sauté in oil, with garlic and chili pepper, if you like it… they are amazing! In this case, the fava beans are small, tender and bright green as you can see, so there’s no need to peel any further; if you have large beans, though, you should remove the outer skin, this one, and keep the bean. Pinch off the eye of the skin and squeeze gently. Take the prosciutto and cut into thin strips, so first stack the slices, then cut into strips. The ingredients for the sauce are ready for cooking.
Drizzle a pan with extra virgin olive oil and add a clove of garlic — I cut the garlic in half so it can be removed easily, but you can use crushed garlic, if you prefer. I made some vegetable broth to use for cooking the fava beans and the tomatoes. Sauté the fava beans in oil for a few minutes, add the cherry tomatoes, sprinkle with salt and thyme, a ladleful of broth and cook for 5 minutes. In the meantime, roll out the dough.
Divide the dough into 2 portions — keep it wrapped in cling film, until you are ready to use it — dust the work surface with flour and roll it out; not too thin, 1 or 2 mm is fine. Here we are, now take a cloth, dust with flour a pizza cutter, and cut first into strips, then into diamond or irregular shapes, as maltagliati means badly cut! Dust with flour, to keep them from sticking together and roll out the remaining dough.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and drop in the pasta, but not all at once. While the pasta is cooking, add the prosciutto to the sauce and a few basil leaves. Remove the garlic, drain the pasta and toss with the sauce. And while I’m cooking the rest of the pasta, let’s see together the ingredients needed for this recipe.
Ingredients for 4 servings
For the pasta dough
– 2 ⅓ cups (300 g) of all-purpose flour
– 3 eggs
For the sauce
– 2 cups (300 g) of shelled fava beans
– ½ lb (250 g) of cherry tomatoes
– 4 slices of prosciutto
– 3 sprigs of thyme
– 5 basil leaves
– about ½ cup (100 ml) of vegetable broth
– a little extra virgin olive oil
– 1 clove of garlic
– 1 pinch of salt
– pepper to taste