Chicken broth*
1/4 pound tagliarini [egg] pasta*
1 cup cooked chicken meat, flaked or cut into long thin strips
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

A large pot of water for cooking pasta


*For a home-made Italian-style chicken broth recipe see "brodo di polo"
* For a fresh home-made egg pasta recipe see "Traditional Italian Pasta Dishes "Fresh Home-made Egg pasta, Version I"

o Make chicken broth.

o Make home-made egg pasta sheets. Using a pasta maker, cut the tagliarini as one would spaghetti [about 12 inches long by 1/16 inch wide]. Cut the spaghetti ribbons in half.

o Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the tagliarini. Drain.

o Place the chicken broth in individual bowls. Garnish with cooked flaked chicken meat, cooked tagliarini, parsley and Parmesan cheese.

Nowadays "tagliarini" is often described as an egg-based pasta that is paper-thin and about 12 inches long. It seems that prior to World War II Molisans living in the town of Casacalenda used the word to describe paper thin noodles that were about 6 inches long (according to my mother). At that time "sagnetelle" looked very similar to "tagliarini," the one difference was that "tagliarini" contained eggs and "sagnetelle" did not (again, according to my mother). In any case, almost everyone who lived in Southern Italy in the 1930s (including my mother) will vouch that this style of soup was only served on very special occasions. As there were no ready-made chicken stock bases available at that time, cooks would have needed to make their stock from scratch, and, that, of course, would have been an expensive proposition.... Photo: Mary Melfi.

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