Fresh pasta made from flour and water alone is an excellent alternative for those who, for various reasons, prefer not to have eggs in their pasta.
Difficulty: easy
Method: 10
Difficulty: easy
Method: 10
Pour flour in a mound on the work surface
Add a bit of warm water and begin working with your fingers
Continue, adding a little water at a time
When a dough begins to form, knead with your knuckles and palms
Continue to knead until dough is smooth and homogeneous
Once dough is smooth and homogeneous, cover with a cloth and let rest for at least an hour
After resting the dough, you can use it to make the desired shape
The dough should not be soft, but rather hard and compact.
Do not add all the water immediately and keep a little spare flour: The type of flour and humidity of the environment in which you work may change the dough’s liquid absorption. Make sure the final result is not soft, but rather hard and compact.
Do not use the dough immediately after making it: The pasta needs to rest for at least one hour so the ingredients bind together better and the dough has the right elasticity.
If you need to preserve the dough before rolling it out:
Fresh pasta can be kept in the refrigerator for two or three days in a sealed container or freezer bag.
You can also freeze it in a freezer bag.
If you need to preserve the dough after it has been rolled out:
After cutting the dough into the shape you want, let it rest and dry for a couple of minutes on a floured cloth, then transfer it to the refrigerator, where it will keep for a couple of days.
You can also freeze it; space out whichever pasta you made—be it orecchiette, trofie, cavatelli, or another shape—on a tray for about one hour, then transfer to the freezer in freezer bags containing the desired portions. When you want to use your pasta, throw it in salted boiling water without defrosting it.
Fresh pasta made from flour and water alone is an excellent alternative for those who, for various reasons, prefer not to have eggs in their pasta. This pasta is traditional in Italy, especially in the South and some regions along the Mediterranean Sea—where it is included in the famous dish orecchiette with broccoli rabe, for example—but also in the North, where it is used, for example, in Ligurian trofie.
You can also use tipo 0 or 00 flour, or a mixture thereof, instead of semolina flour, which will yield a less rustic dough.
500 g semola rimacinata di grano duro (re-milled semolina flour)
250 ml water
