Handmade Cavatelli
Making this pasta is easy, but get the right flour!
How to Make Cavatelli Pasta • Ric Orlando
Cavatelli, which in Italian informally translates to “Little Caves”, is one of the more primitive shapes of pasta that has sustained hard working Italians for roughly 800 years a centuries. Cavatelli sometimes have exterior ridges from beginning rolled on a wooden gnocchi paddle, or sometimes they are made by rolling with three fingers or a serrated knife (for guys like me whose fingers are just too big) creating ridges on the inside, or even rolled with a. Each technique creates ridges that are designed to hold whatever sauce you have the whim to pair them with.
There is something therapeutic about making pasta by hand like this We need it. It is not virtual. It is as real as it gets. Grain+water=food=life. .
Makes 4 Italian size servings (or two American size)
Weigh the ingredients, 2 parts flour to one part water. Scale up as needed.
120 grams coarse Semola (Semolina) Flour
60 grams water, warmed to about 120F
A pinch of fine sea salt
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Method
First step, Make the dough:
Put the flour in a medium mixing bowl.
Add the luke-warm water to the flour a little at a time, and begin to work the flour in with your fingers.
Work in all of the water to form a crumbly dough. It will feel quite grainy. Don’t worry. Magic will happen.
Pull it together, squeezing and pressing with your hands until it comes together.
Knead on a board by using the ball of your hand, pushing the pasta away from you. Turn 90 degrees, fold in half and repeat, turning after each knead, for about 5 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and pliable and feels a bit like firm play dough.
Form into a smooth ball wrap in plastic wrap.
Leave the dough ball to rest for about 20-30 minutes at room temperature.
Second Step, Make the “snake and the pillows”.
Once rested, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Make sure your work board is clean and is NOT floured- this gives your dough a little grip. Roll each piece, one at a time, into a long snake-like shape– it should be about ½ inch thick. If it is slipping, VERY SLIGHTLY dampen your hands with water.
Using a bench scraper (so you don't scar your board with a knife), cut the rope into small pillows of dough around ¼ inch thick.
Third Step, form the pasta.
Put a light dusting of flour in the corner of your work board. This is where the cavatelli will gather as you roll them.
Also, prepare a sheet pan by dusting it real well with flour.
If you are using a gnocchi paddle, hold it on your work board on a 45 degree angle to the surface.
Put one pillow of cut dough on the paddle, near the top..
Using your thumb, parallel to the paddle, press from the top of the pillow and push through, rolling the cavetello off the board, you may have to give it a flick. Flick it onto the floured corner until you have made a batch, then scoop that batch onto the floured sheet pan and sprinkle them with more flour.
Continue until you have used all the dough.
Once all of your past is on the sheet pan, make sure it is well floured so the pasta doesn't stick together.
If you using a Serrated knife, put you pillow on the unfloured board and put the press the knife, serrated edge away from you, onto the far edge of the pillow and keeping the knife parallel to the board, pull it back towards you. As you reach the closer edge of the pillow the pasta should curl up to form a cavatello. Cook for 3-4 minutes in salted boiled water, toss with your favorite
pasta sauce and prepare to be transported to Sicily.
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