Facciamo la Pasta!

Facciamo la pasta con Fabiana!

Last week, our students had the opportunity to participate in a two day pasta making workshop. Our pasta guru, Fabiana, taught us how to make two types of pasta dough from scratch as well as a variety of pasta shapes. Fabiana usually makes many kilos of pasta by hand each day, but for the purposes of our workshop, she scaled down a bit and gave each student 100 grams of flour and one egg to work with. She demonstrated how to create a well in the center of the flour and slowly incorporate the egg into the flour. 

Once the dough is fully mixed together, it rests in a plastic bag for 20 to 30 minutes while the gluten develops. 

Next, Fabiana taught us how to make different shapes of pasta by hand such as farfalle, fagottini, and tortellini.

On day two of the workshop, Fabiana showed us how to use a pasta chitarra. In Italian, chitarra means guitar, and the tool used to make this type of pasta looks like a string instrument. Pasta dough is rolled flat and placed on top of the strings and then pushed through the strings with a wooden rolling pin. With this tool, you can make spaghetti alla chitarra or fettuccine depending on which side of the chitarra you use. 

After each demonstration, students got the opportunity to make their own pasta dough, experiment with pasta shapes, and use the chitarra. Che divertimento!

Now that students are experts on pasta making, they should be ready to prepare an authentic Italian dinner back home in the U.S.! Buon appetito!