Pasta discs from Novi

Corsetti Novesi is a very original pasta dish. It consists of thin discs of dough stamped with a symbol.

It can be topped either with the mushroom sauce described below or with pesto genovese.

This dish originally comes from Genoa and it is likely that the stamp used nowadays to mark the pasta is identical to the one used to seal letters sent between well-to-do Genoese families. It was made from wood, was embossed with the family coat of arms and used with sealing wax to close letters. In Novi, the stamp is embossed with the “Eye of God” which appears above the altar in one church and on the facade of another in the town. The bad news is that this stamp is not easily available.

The good news is that “corsetti” are relatively easy to prepare although a lot of patience is required. The emboss is both aesthetically pleasing and practical from a gastronomic point of view as the indentations hold the sauce well in addition to making the pasta’s consistency suitable for cooking in boiling water.