Pasta school 16: Make your own casarecce

Casarecce homemade

Casarecce simply means homemade, as this pasta shape from Sicily is one of the easiest to prepare. This time we have chosen a special dough, namely one made from grano arso, i.e. roasted grain. Normally, the durum wheat grains are roasted before they are ground. As a makeshift solution, we roasted a quarter of the flour in a pan without oil and mixed it with normal durum wheat flour. The toasted flour smells like freshly baked cookies – definitely give it a try!

Otherwise, the recipe for casarecce pasta dough is the same as for any other egg-free pasta: For every 100 g of durum wheat flour, use 50 ml of water. Knead everything well and for a long time until a smooth dough is formed. If it is a little too dry, just moisten your hands a little and continue kneading. Shape the dough into a ball as usual, wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for about an hour.

Making casarecce yourself – the material

• at least two wooden shashlik sticks
• Knife
• floured work surface
• clean cotton or linen cloth to dry the casarecce

Making casarecce yourself – shaping the pasta

Make your own casarecce

If you want to make your own casarecce, all you need is one or two wooden shashlik sticks. In the past, a blade of grass or something similar was used for this. It is better to have a few more wooden sticks in stock, as they can break when shaping the pasta.
Take the dough out of the fridge, take a piece about the size of a golf ball and roll it into a thin roll with a diameter of 5 mm (image 1). Cut off pieces of 3-4 cm with a knife (image 2). Now press a groove into the piece of dough lengthwise with one of the wooden sticks (no. 3), turn it onto its “belly” and press another groove into it with the wooden stick, slightly offset from it. You can also leave the first wooden stick under the upturned dough and press the second groove into it with the second stick (image 4). Then twist the resulting pasta slightly (image 6) so that the sauce can be held better. Leave the finished casarecce to dry on the cloth.

Finished casarecce