making pasta

homemade cavatelli! (very rudimentary, but cavatelli, nevertheless.) a number of years ago i borrowed a book from the library titled, the flavors of sicily (a book that can only be viewed now, on site at the library). from that book i found a website dedicated to sicilian cooking, established by fabrizia lanza, who was maintaining the cooking school her mother had established on the family estate, two hours southeast of palermo. the villa holds workshops with renowned chefs and with fabrizia, who has been an advocate for documenting local sicilian recipes, traditions and native plants that still grow wild around the island. i think of it as the sicilian slow food movement. due to the current pandemic, they are offering online cooking classes via zoom. i've never made fresh pasta before, so i thought it would be fun to try with help from a chef i've always admired.
 

 i was ready to go by 9:45 am . . (the workshop didn't begin until 11). all ingredients were out and measured: flour and one egg (a mix of whole wheat and all purpose as we weren't able to find durum semolina), 1/2 cup water, 1 cup almonds, 6 tablespoons parmesano, 1 1/2 cups olive oil, 1 cup fresh sage leaves and two cloves of garlic. water was in a pot, ready to be heated, and the food processor was out, ready for the sage pesto to be mixed (my breakfast of oatmeal and muscovado sugar is in the bowl on the right).

 there were only eight students in the class, so they were able to check in with each one of us. "dorina, how is your dough. let's see your dough . . " well, my dough was not the best! the whole wheat flour made it a little heavy. it needed a little more water than the recipe called for, and it needed to rest a little longer. i finally just had to work with it as it was. the first time i rolled it a bit too thick; the second and third times were better. after rolling a long tube, you slice pieces off with a sharp knife, and then roll it along a citrus grater to rough it up and curl it in. you could also use a cavatelli board, if you even knew that such a thing as a cavatelli board existed (i didn't).

after rolling out the cavatelli, you place it on a floured cloth until the water is the proper temperature and is at a rolling boil (and after you throw in a good amount of sicilian sea salt). you then boil it until it rises to the top, or until it's a uniform color when cut in half . . or until you think it tastes done! before scooping it out of the pot with a slotted spoon, you mix some of the pesto with cooking water, then add the cooked pasta, followed by more  pesto on top, and then mix everything until combined. 

it was delicious! my word to describe it to the rest of the class was: very hardy. (my enjoyment of whole wheat flour isn't shared by everyone in my family.)

since i wanted greg and chanda to eat the pasta while it was still hot, i brought it to them: greg had his while finishing up work before his lunch break . . 

and chanda had her's while finishing up whatever she was watching . . 

there was so much to clean up after! i don't think i've ever made such a mess in the kitchen before. 

i'd like to try making the dough with spelt flour, and there's still plenty of pesto left for it.