How to Make Pasta Without a Pasta Machine

In most cases, fresh pasta is preferable to dried pasta, but I don’t have a pasta maker and I don’t have much upper body strength. Because of these shortcomings, most of my pasta-making efforts in the past ended in overly thick noodles that were cooked endlessly, but once I gave up my notions of angel hair and decided to make sheets rather than strands, life became much more rewarding.

Flexible, folded, hand-torn pieces of pasta are nothing new. This is called fuzzoletti , or “pasta with a handkerchief,” because of its shape. (Please keep it away from the nose.) You make the dough, tear off small pieces and roll them into thin sheets, tearing or cutting them into any shape you want. There are many good dough recipes out there, but I’ve found this aggressively simple recipe from Allrecipes works pretty well as it doesn’t have to be kneaded a lot, although I use half of the semolina flour and half of the all-purpose flour and not all the generic ones. To make these silky sheets you will need:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup semolina flour
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons of water

Whisk together flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a small hole in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the beaten egg into it. Use a fork to mix and when the dough starts to clump, begin kneading, adding water as needed to help it form a cohesive mound. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and continue kneading for three to four minutes until it looks like this:

Let it rest for at least 15 minutes, then use a dough cutter (or large knife) to cut the dough into eight equal pieces. Bend each piece to a rectangular shape, then roll it out as thin as possible, rip it in half, and roll the two pieces out as thin as possible.

The goal is for the paste to show through with light without dark spots. The pasta in the photo above is almost ready – you just need to roll it out a little more along the edge closest to my hand.

Once you have a stack of handkerchiefs, you are ready to cook them. Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil, then add the pasta, whisking the sheets and pushing as needed to keep them from sticking together. Cook for three to five minutes, until they are al dente (which means tasty), then use tongs to remove them, wet them, and toss them into a warmed marinara, pesto, or creamy (but no cream) pancetta platter.

Grate, rip up some basil, open a bottle of wine (or a can of Diet Coke) and enjoy the rustic nature of it all.