00 Flour
I like to make my own pizza and pasta. When you look at recipes for either, they usually recommend that you use type 00 flour. "Fine," I exclaim at the recipe (not out loud - I'm not a mental) "but where exactly am I supposed to buy type 00 flour? None of the supermarkets sell it, not even bloody Waitrose."Well it just so happens that I found a great Italian deli today, bursting with authentic Italian produce. In fact the place was so authentic that they struggled to understand me.
"Hello, shop keep," I didn't really say this, but let's pretend I did, as it emphasises the cultural divide between me and the aged nonna that served me - "do you sell flour?"
"Uh?"
"Flour, do you sell flour? Like, pasta flour?"
"Go to the bottom of the shop..."
"right..."
"...and when you get there, ask the man who is down there."
"Right-o, thanks awfully!" I didn't say.
Well to cut a long story short, I asked the man at the bottom of the shop, and now have 2Kilos of type 00 flour, which this weekend I shall use to make tagliettelle and if time allows, pizza.
The only long term draw back of all this is that this Italian Deli was in bloody Maidenhead, just round the corner from my company's head office, so if the stuff is really that much better, I can't exactly nip down there to pick up some more. But at least I can try it, and if I like it, make the effort to buy it online.
By the way, I just found out that making fresh pasta is bloody easy and not expensive. Basically, per person, you just mash together 1 egg and 100g flour into a dough, and then roll it out, and that's basically it. Maybe I'll do a proper post on pasta making before long.
Ciao for now.
