Fainelle
Flat strascinato that vaguely resembles carob.
Name. Fainella is the Foggia dialect word for a carob pod. The pasta is shaped like one.
What it is
Fainelle are a wide, hand-dragged pasta from the Foggia area. The dough is durum wheat semolina, water, and salt. Some makers add whole-wheat flour or grano arso. The dough is kneaded for a long time. Pieces are rolled into pencil-thick ropes and cut into 4 to 5 cm lengths. A sferre, a handleless knife with a rounded tip, drags each piece into a long, curved strascinato. Oretta Zanini De Vita gives a finished length of about 10 cm.
The shape belongs to the Capitanata, the province of Foggia in Puglia. Manfredonia dialect uses the same word for the carob fruit. The sources consulted do not name a fixed sauce. Fainelle are cooked in salted water like other strascinati.
Nutrition
Per 100 g of dry semolina pasta. The shape does not change these numbers. The dough does, so a whole wheat or egg version of this shape reads differently. See every dough.
| Per 100 g | Energy | Protein | Carbohydrate | Fibre | Fat | Sodium | Iron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | 371 kcal | 13.0 g | 74.7 g | 3.2 g | 1.5 g | 6 mg | 3.3 mg |
| Cooked | 158 kcal | 5.8 g | 30.9 g | 1.8 g | 0.9 g | 1 mg | 1.3 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 235 g cooked, 371 kcal and 13 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.3 times its weight in the pot.
No fainelle? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look.
Other names
fainèlle, strascinati.
Sources
- Oretta Zanini De Vita, Encyclopedia of Pasta, Fainelle (ckbk) (profile: origin, form, use)
- Famelici, Pranzo pugliese a Bovino (profile: origin, form, use)
- Parliamo Manfredoniano, Fainèlle (profile: origin, form, use)
- Wikipedia, List of pasta (profile: origin, form, use)
- USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169736, Pasta, dry, enriched; FDC 169737, Pasta, cooked, enriched, without added salt), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Fainelle, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.