Tajarin
tah-yah-REEN
Hair-thin golden egg ribbon.
2.3 mm wide, 0.7 mm thick
Name. Piedmontese dialect for tagliolini.
What it is
Tajarin is the tagliolini of the Langhe, made with an extravagant number of yolks, thirty or forty to a kilo of flour, which turns the sheet deep gold and gives the cut ribbons a rich, tender bite. They are cut as fine as the cook can manage.
The classic dressing is butter and shaved white Alba truffle in autumn. The everyday version is a roast-meat gravy, sugo d'arrosto, or a light ragu.
How to cook tajarin
1 to 3 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
1:00
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 tajarin. 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
The pasta is the point, so the sauce is a film: melted butter, truffle, the juices from a roast. Nothing heavier.
Pairs with: Butter and sage · Porcini · In brodo
Classic plates: Tajarin al tartufo bianco, Tajarin al burro, Tajarin al sugo d'arrosto.
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 tajarin? 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
tajarin piemontesi, tagliolini piemontesi.
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.
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.