Chestnut flour handmade spaghetti
Prep Time: 30 minutes + rest time
Cook Time: 3 minutes
Keywords: boil pasta soy-free vegetarian flour cheese Italian
Ingredients (Serves 2)
- 25 g / 1 ounce chestnut flour
- 75 g / 2.5 ounces all-purpose flour
- 55 g / 2 ounces warm water
- A pinch of salt
- 1/2 tablespoon / 7 g butter
- 50 g / 1 3/4 ounces Crescenza cheese cut into small pieces
Instructions
Note: I recommend weighing both flour and water.
How to make the dough and shape spaghettiMake a dough with the ingredients and knead until nice and smooth. Let it rest, well covered (e.g., wrapped in plastic film), for at least half an hour.
Working on the kneading board, roll the dough into a long oblong that is narrower than your pasta machine. It must be thin enough to go through the machine but not as thin as when you make tagliatelle, about 2 mm. Alternatively, cut the dough in half and roll and shape one piece at a time. Keep the half you are not working with wrapped until you need it.
Run the dough through the pasta machine fitted with a tagliatelle attachment. Separate the strand and drape them over a rolling pin or thick dowel. From now on, you need to work fairly fast, because the dough is drying while you shape the spaghetti and if it dries too much you won't be able to roll it with your hands.
Cut a strand in 2-3 pieces. With your hands, roll each piece into a spaghetto and drape it over a rolling pin or dowel, or place it on a floured wooden board. I suggest to cut each piece 4.5-5 inches / 11.5-12.5 cm long to get spaghetti about 13-14 inches / 33-35.5 cm long. I would not go longer than this (factory-made spaghetti is 10.5 inches / 25.5 cm long). Adjust the measurements as necessary, depending on your pasta machine and also how thick you like the spaghetti. The important thing is to be consistent, so the spaghetti strands are similar in terms of thickness. [You can watch my hands at work in this short video.]
Repeat until you have used up the prepared dough.
Let spaghetti dry for at least a few hours, up to a full day.
Cook spaghetti and dress as you like. The following cheese sauce is just a suggestion.
How to cook and dress the spaghettiBring a small pot of water to a rolling boil, add some coarse salt, stir and then toss the spaghetti in it. The time needed to cook it is a bit variable, depending on size, how dry it is, but it is not long.
In the meantime, melt the butter in a skillet on gentle heat, then add the cheese and stir while it softens. You want to time this so that the cheese is just melted by the time the pasta is ready to join it.
Taste and stop the cooking when the spaghetti is ready. Pour a glass of cold water in the pot, stir and drain leaving a little bit of the cooking water clinging to the spaghetti. Drop the pasta into the skillet with the melted cheese. Stir well over medium-low heat for half a minute or so, until the spaghetti is coated with the cheese. Plate and serve immediately.
