When individuals take into consideration making recent pasta at house, they usually take into consideration flour flying across the kitchen, sticky globs of egg dough pasted onto counter tops and glued onto fingers, and hours of cranking a pasta machine, slowly wrestling dough into paper-thin submission. However there’s a complete different form of pasta-making that doesn’t contain any rolling and even any eggs. Welcome to the world of Southern Italian pasta, and one in all my private favorites: cavatelli. 

Not like egg pasta, which is commonly delicate and satiny, cavatelli—which interprets to “little hollows”—are rustic, chewy, and ridiculously satisfying. Making the hole nugget-like noodles is remarkably gratifying. You want little greater than your individual two fingers. Not like shapes like fettuccine, pappardelle, and farfalle, that are made by rolling dough into skinny sheets and chopping out shapes, cavatelli are shaped by hand from small chunks of a pliable water-based dough. As soon as the dough is combined and kneaded, it’s rolled into ropes by hand, reduce into small segments, and eventually pressed and rolled throughout the counter or a grooved hand-held pasta board to make brief, thick, chewy noodles.

I discovered to make recent cavatelli, and all kinds of southern Italian pasta, after I lived within the tiny city of Conversano in Puglia. There I labored full-time in a Michelin-starred restaurant, studying and perfecting the craft of constructing recent pasta from my coworkers and fellow cooks. Since my time as a culinary pupil and prepare dinner in Italy, my love for recent pasta has solely grown, and I now have my very own pasta enterprise, promoting packaged parts of many types of recent noodles at farmers markets in Martha’s Winery, the place I dwell. As a pasta lover who lives and breathes it, I’ve discovered quite a bit about making do-it-yourself cavatelli. Right here’s some perception into making spectacular recent cavatelli at house.

The Proper Flour for Cavatelli

As with nearly all of southern Italian pastas, cavatelli dough is constituted of semolina flour and water, generally with a really small addition of olive oil. With so few elements, the standard and sort of flour you utilize is important in guaranteeing flavorful pasta. You wish to search for double-milled (additionally known as “rimacinata”) semolina flour. Semolina rimacinata is finely-ground arduous durum wheat that has a excessive protein content material, mild yellow shade, and a gentle texture that simply absorbs water. It’s excellent for kneading into pasta dough and creating supple, structured noodles.

The double-milled flour is essential since you need the grain very finely floor to make sure dough that is silky, not grainy. You should purchase semolina rimacinata such because the Caputo model at specialty markets and on-line. I all the time search for semolina from Puglia, however that is a private choice. Don’t try to substitute all-purpose flour for the double-milled semolina flour within the recipe. The ensuing dough shall be powerful with a pasty, glue-like texture.

The Completely different Types of Cavatelli

Cavatelli originate from the Molise and Puglia areas of Italy, however the kind of pasta has deep roots all through Southern Italy, with regional nuances. The ladies I discovered from in Puglia confirmed me the way to form clean—”lisci”—cavatelli. Every nugget of dough was shaped on their wood counters with simply their thumbs, urgent and dragging the dough till it curled over itself, forming the shell-like “little hollows.” The opposite fashion of cavatelli are ridged, or “rigati,” and are formed utilizing specialty pasta boards or hand-cranked pasta makers.

The Instruments You’ll Want for Shaping Cavatelli

Clean cavatelli are the best to form and require no specialty tools. You may merely use a butter knife and even simply your thumb to scrape the dough throughout a flat floor to present it its hole curled form, and I’ve included these instructions in my recipe under.

Nevertheless, I choose to make my cavatelli with ridges as a result of I like how pasta sauce clings to the nooks. There are lots of totally different pasta instruments that can be utilized for shaping cavatelli with ridges, however I’ve discovered a easy gnocchi board works the most effective. Hand-held gnocchi boards are pretty inexpensive and can be found at many Italian grocers or on-line. Different specialty pasta boards, equivalent to a garganelli or malloreddus board, may even work. Or, in case you’re all in favour of inventive experimentation, search for artisanal cavarolo boards constituted of several types of wooden with many various etched designs. As you press and roll the dough towards the board, the design will imprint the pasta.

Another choice for shaping cavatelli is a crank-operated cavatelli machine. With this small pasta maker you place a hand-rolled rope of dough between the 2 rollers and crank the deal with whereas the machine cuts and shapes the noodles. It’s a really enjoyable device to make use of, and in case you foresee making cavatelli on a frequent foundation at house, I encourage you to think about shopping for one.

What Sauce Ought to You Serve With Cavatelli?

Now let’s speak about what sort of sauce goes along with your hand-formed cavatelli that you simply so lovingly took the time to make. Whether or not ridged or clean, cavatelli are unbelievable sauce-holders. The indent within the inside cavity, whether or not formed by your thumb or rolled into tight overlapping folds, catches and shops sauce very effectively. In the event you form them “rigati” fashion by rolling the dough on a textured board, you may get much more sauce in every chew as a result of it’s going to cling contained in the ridges. 

A common rule when pairing pasta with sauce is that it’s important to take note of how the melange will journey from bowl to mouth. As an example, lengthy noodles like pappardelle twirl up in your fork, touring as a bit nest. For that, you’d need a thick sauce that adheres effectively and has parts (assume a slow-cooked ragu with shredded meat) that get caught up within the twirl and make it to your mouth alongside the pasta. However for brief, rustic, dumpling-like pasta shapes like cavatelli, we would attain for a spoon as a substitute of a fork. We wish a looser sauce that may pool within the spoon and tuck into the little hollows of every noodle. 

A recent tomato or slow-cooked tomato sauce or perhaps a ragu are nice choices, and I’ve included them under. You can additionally fold tender bites of cooked seasonal greens, equivalent to inexperienced beans, or shavings of salty cheese like ricotta salata into the ultimate dish. Finally, you need a sauce that mirrors the pure simplicity of the handmade cavatelli. Use good elements and it is arduous to go incorrect.