Handmade Pasta Cavatelli

The first in a series of pasta posts from our never-before-published cookbook.

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We’d like to introduce you to a beautifully simple dough that will inspire you to make homemade pasta, even on a weeknight when you only have thirty minutes to spend on dinner (really!). Forget all your former pasta-making struggles. Traditional hand-shaped Italian pasta like boat-shaped cavatelli and pici, a thick hand-rolled spaghetti, can be made, shaped, and cooked for two people in about as much time as it takes to bring a pot of salted water to a boil (and sometimes you don’t even need to do that—you cook the pasta right in the sauce!). Part of the beauty is in the simplicity: all you need is semolina flour, water, and your hands.

The recipes that will follow over the next few weeks come from a book that we wrote together but never published. The idea was born out of the desire to tell others about a revolutionary dough made predominantly by nonnas in Italy who have passed their techniques down through the generations. After trying to write directions for how to shape pasta and give words to the motion of the fingers or the roll of the butter knife, we realized that visually seeing the process is key to learning the movements for shaping the dough.

Our hope is that these recipes and photos will become an indispensable kitchen resource for making the world’s easiest and most enjoyable pasta dough, one that’s denser and more toothsome than any egg-based dough could hope to be. Start with the simple cavatelli (below), then graduate to maccheroni and strozzapreti over the coming weeks. Gather friends, enlist a few kids, make the dough, then sit around a big table and form the shapes together. Don’t worry if all the shapes in a batch aren’t exactly the same—that’s the beauty of handmade pasta. Simply enjoy the act of slowing down and gathering together, to hand-form your dinner one pici at a time.

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Semolina Flour Pasta Dough

Serves 4

Semolina-based pasta dough was born out of necessity during times when eggs were scarce. It became popular, particularly in southern Italy, where some pasta shapes like cavatelli, pici, and orecchiette are now traditionally made with this eggless dough. The dough utilizes a hard-wheat semolina flour that is yellow in color and has a higher gluten content than regular flour. This is one of those doughs where exact measurements are meant to be a guide rather than a rule. The results will depend on the exact brand of semola di grano duro used, the temperature of the water, and even the humidity in the air. After making this dough a few times, you’ll learn to rely on the feel of the dough, not the exact formula, for the perfect outcome. The resulting pasta will have a good density and pleasing chew.