Coffee pasta with pancetta, sage and chestnuts

Serves 4

400 grams of flour

4 eggs

2 teaspoons of ground coffee

4 slices of thinly cut pancetta

8-10 sage leaves

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
125 ml dry white wine

12-16 boiled or roasted chestnuts, shelled
salt and pepper to taste

To make the pasta, tip the flour onto a wooden board and create a wide “well” in the middle of it. Crack the eggs into this well, add the ground coffee, and begin beating the eggs with a fork until creamy, then slowly incorporating the flour around it until the mixture becomes too sticky to continue beating. Now with hands, continue gathering flour into the dough bit by bit until you have a dough that is no longer stick to the touch. You can also do this in a bowl rather than a board, or mix in a food processor rather than by hand. Set aside, covered, for 30 minutes. The dough needs to rest and this time will give the flour time to hydrate properly.

Roll out the dough on a pasta machine to the second-last setting, dusting with flour along the way to avoid sticking. With a frilled pastry cutter, cut the dough across the short width into 3cm thick pappardelle-like short strips.

When ready to cook, heat a pot of well-salted water to boil.

In a wide pan, cook the pancetta and sage in the olive oil over medium heat until the pancetta is crisp and the sage is fragrant and wilted. Pour over the white wine and let simmer for 2 minutes, then add the chestnuts, crumbled into small pieces. Taste for salt – you may not need it – and add some black pepper. Set aside until the pasta is ready.