Maccheroni alla Molinara

One enormous hand-pulled strand, tossed with pecorino in front of whoever is eating.

Not vegetarian — contains pecorino whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 600 g semolina flour
• 300 ml warm water
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 600 g passata
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 dried chilli
• 250 g pecorino, grated

Method

1. Make a stiff semolina dough with the water and a teaspoon of salt. Knead 15 minutes — this dough has to take a lot of pulling — and rest it an hour under a cloth.
2. Make a simple sauce: oil, garlic, chilli, passata, 25 minutes.
3. Roll the dough into one thick rope and begin PULLING AND FOLDING IT, stretching the loop and doubling it back on itself, over and over, keeping it floured.
4. IT STAYS ONE CONTINUOUS STRAND. Nothing is cut at any point — the dish is a single piece of pasta metres long, and cutting it makes it ordinary spaghetti.
5. Lower the whole coil into a wide pan of boiling salted water and cook 5 to 6 minutes.
6. Lift it into a warmed bowl, add the sauce and ALL the pecorino, and toss it high and hard at the table until the cheese ropes. The tossing is the performance and it is also what emulsifies the sauce.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes