Fazzoletti
fat-tsoh-LET-tee
Thin square of egg sheet, folded loosely on the plate like a handkerchief.
100 mm wide, 0.7 mm thick
Name. Handkerchiefs. Mandilli de sea, silk handkerchiefs, in Genoese.
What it is
Fazzoletti are squares of very thin egg pasta, ten centimetres or so, boiled and laid loosely on the plate so they fold like handkerchiefs. Genoa's mandilli de sea are the classic, dressed with pesto.
They are lasagne without the oven: the sheet as a fresh pasta in its own right.
How to cook fazzoletti
2 to 3 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
2:00
Start when the water returns to the boil.
Water and salt
- Pasta, dry
- 400 g
- Water
- 4 L
- Salt
- 40 g
100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.
The steps
- Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
- Add the fazzoletti. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Fresh pasta has no dry core. It is done when it is tender, not when it resists.
- Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
- Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.
Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.
How it holds sauce
A wide thin sheet with maximum surface. Pesto, a walnut sauce, butter and a light ragu, or a mushroom cream. Nothing heavy or chunky.
Pairs with: Pesto alla genovese · Walnut sauce · Butter and sage · Porcini · Meat ragu
Classic plates: Mandilli de sea al pesto, Fazzoletti con salsa di noci, Fazzoletti al ragu bianco.
Nutrition
Per 100 g of fresh 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 | 288 kcal | 11.3 g | 54.7 g | g | 2.3 g | 26 mg | 3.4 mg |
| Cooked | 131 kcal | 5.2 g | 24.9 g | g | 1.1 g | 6 mg | 1.1 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 220 g cooked, 288 kcal and 11 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.2 times its weight in the pot.
No fazzoletti? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Other names
Fazzoletti di seta, mandilli, mandilli de sea, mandilli di sea (Ligurian dialect), silk handkerchiefs.
Read more
Semolina versus egg dough: the two doughs of Italian pasta
The difference between durum semolina pasta and egg pasta: flour, water, eggs, where each is made, how each cooks, and which sauces each dough wants.
Fresh versus dried pasta: neither is better, they are different foods
The difference between fresh and dried pasta: dough, texture, cook time, storage, and which shapes and sauces belong to each.
Sources
- Cook time: fresh egg pasta.
- USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169727, Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, as purchased; FDC 169728, Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, cooked), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Fazzoletti, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q58898166, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.