Garganelli
gar-gah-NEL-lee
Egg-pasta square rolled on a comb into a ridged quill.
11.5 mm across, 0.9 mm wall
Name. From garganel, Romagnol dialect for a chicken's gullet, which the ridged tube resembles.
What it is
Garganelli are the hand-made penne of Romagna: a square of egg sheet rolled diagonally around a stick over a ridged wooden comb, the pettine, so the tube comes out with fine ridges and an overlapping seam. They come from the country around Imola and Lugo.
They are served with a ragu, with peas and prosciutto in cream, or with a sauce of chicken giblets.
How to cook garganelli
3 to 5 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
3:00
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 garganelli. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 2 minutes. A hairline of white at the centre is al dente.
- 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
Egg dough, ridges, and a bore, so they absorb and hold a rich sauce: ragu, cream with peas and ham, a butter and prosciutto dressing. The classic cream sauce of Romagna was made for them.
Pairs with: Cream sauce · Ragu alla bolognese · Meat ragu · Butter and sage
Classic plates: Garganelli con piselli e prosciutto, Garganelli al ragu, Garganelli alla romagnola.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
1 brand, 1 product page.
| Brand | Product | No. | Cook |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Molisana | Garganelli N.225 All'Uovoextra di lusso | 225 | 7 min |
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 garganelli? 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
Maccheroni al pettine (Marche), fischioni, garganelli romagnoli, maccheroni al pettine.
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
- Garganelli N.225 All'Uovo (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: fresh egg pasta.
- Photograph: Maccheronialpettine.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- 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.
- Garganelli, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q869617, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.