How to Make Pasta By Hand - No Eggs Needed

Today, we're going back to basics, cavatelli. 

Hey bakers, Ryan in the studio here, and today, we are making Brian Levy's Eggless Pasta. The recipe is linked right below for you in the description. Today, I'm gonna show you a great hand-shaped technique for cavatelli. You can also visit our website for a ton of information on some other shapes for you. So let's get to it and make some pasta. So what I'm gonna do with this pasta first, we're gonna go ahead and get our durum flour measured out. And we're using durum flour today because of a couple things. It is high in protein, it's got some great gluten strength, and it also has a beautiful golden color, so you're really gonna see that shine through when you get your pasta all made. We're gonna take 400 grams of the durum wheat and get that right into our mixing bowl. And then to that, we're gonna do a quarter teaspoon of salt. So we're making a little well in the center of our bowl. Then we're gonna take the hot water about 110 to 120 degrees for you there, and we're just gonna pour that right in the center. And we're doing 200 grams of this. So we're gonna mix this pasta by hand, starting right in the center of the well you made, and you're just going to incorporate and hydrate all of that flour, and you're gonna think to yourself, it's not enough water in there, but it does come together. Work it around in there just to make sure you're getting all those little bits down. You could use a fork for this if you want to, but I just like using my hands because we're making handmade pasta. So we're gonna go ahead and dump this on our counter and hand knead it for about 10 minutes. Now, if you don't feel comfortable kneading with your hands for that long, you could certainly put this in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook and knead it on low speed for about 10 minutes as well. It's still gonna give you a great result. We're gonna go ahead and knead this by hand now for about 10 minutes. So when you are hand kneading this type of dough, it's a little bit on the stiffer side, so there's a few things you can do to help with your wrist. If you have some pain in your wrist or your fingers, you're really just kind of gathering the dough, gently pushing it away. There is no need to put your entire body weight into it. What I like to do sometimes is I kinda take this triangle stance, so that way it gives you a little bit more grounding and you can just kinda work right into that dough. Let your body kind of do the work. Become one with the dough. So after just a few minutes of kneading, you can really see how this dough is coming together. It's getting a little bit of a smoothness there. It's still pretty rough though, so we're gonna keep going on this until it gets nice and smooth. When you are working with handmade pasta doughs, a lot of time these doughs, they're gonna be stiffer, and you might say to yourself, I wanna add a little more water. I wanna get a little bit more moisture in there. But you don't wanna do that because what you are looking for in the final product is a chewy, al dente, hardier style pasta, so if you add too much liquid at this stage, your shapes may not hold up the best. The dough just might be a little bit more difficult to work with, so you are looking for a stiffer dough here. So it's been about 10 minutes. This dough looks beautifully smooth at this point. This is the stage which we're gonna put it back in the bowl that we mixed in. We're gonna cover it. We're just gonna give it a good 15 to 20 minute rest now to relax all that gluten that we've developed, and we will be back to shape momentarily. So this dough has been rested for about 15 to 20 minutes. It is really smooth. It has relaxed a little bit. It's much more malleable. So we're gonna divide this into four equal size pieces. What you're looking for is about 146 grams of dough for each piece. And you wanna work fairly quickly when you have a dough like this because it's gonna start to dry out. We're gonna go ahead and get the pieces that we're not working with back into the bowl covered. I like to just kinda get 'em into a little bit of a round shape. You don't have to round them perfectly. Back in the bowl. We got the bowl cover to go back on, and that's gonna help prevent them from forming a skin and drying out 'cause that can make it real hard to make your shapes. So we're gonna go ahead and make some cavatelli, but first, I am going to clear my area because this takes a little bit of space to get going. All you really need on your work surface is your sheet pan with some parchment. We're gonna need a bench cutter, a ruler, and a towel, 'cause once we roll this out, you wanna keep it covered, so that way, again, it doesn't dry out and get a little bit difficult to work with. One other thing I like to keep at hand as well is just a slightly damp towel because you'll notice if your hands are dry, if your bench is dry, your pasta might just kinda slip around. So a little bit of tackiness helps with that. So first thing we're gonna do is roll each portion of our dough into a 34 inch long strip to cut these. I don't like having rulers constantly on my work surface, so what I'm gonna do is kind of use some markings in the table as well as using the stuff you have on your table already to kind of make the space that you know you need for this. So we're gonna go 34 inches long with this piece of dough. 34 inches is about, we're gonna say from the side of this pan, and we'll say right over to this towel here, right? So you know this is your work area. Once you get each piece of dough this long, you know it's gonna be about the right shape for you. You don't have to keep going back in to measure every piece. And we are just gonna take this, even if your countertop is a little bit too slick. Again, a little bit of dampness here is just gonna help you get that dough rolled out, so that way you're not just pushing it around. And you're just gonna take both hands, and we're gonna work it out. We're gonna start in the center, and we're just gonna work this single piece of dough out. You're looking for about 34 inches. And if you notice it gets a little bit difficult to roll, if it's not really moving under your hands, take that damp towel real quick, just a quick little wipe, little bit of moisture, and then you are back on track. When we're rolling out this piece of dough, you kinda wanna use even pressure through all your hands. I like having my fingers spread out because it allows me to work with a little bit more surface of the dough. You're pushing down, and you're also pulling away from you. So it's just a matter of rolling that rope. And we have reached our specified length. We're about a half inch thick, and now we're gonna go into cutting these cavatellis. We're gonna cover the portion that we're not using here. We don't want it to dry out. Now, we're just gonna shape. So the cavatelli, it's a little hollowed out boat shape. So all you're really gonna do is take your two fingers here, press 'em into the long side of that piece, press down, pull over, and you're done. When I make fresh pasta, I like to eat it the same day, so it's not something that I wanna make too far ahead of time. If you do wanna get ahead of the game though, you can make the dough, wrap it in some plastic wrap, pop it in the fridge for 24 hours, or even freeze it for later use, but you're gonna get the best results if you really let it dry on the counter for an hour and then it's dinner time. So the nice thing about fresh pasta is that it takes about three to five minutes to cook. It is not gonna take as long as a fully dried pasta version will take. So we're gonna check it early. Check it after two, three minutes. If you have a thicker shape, maybe it takes five minutes, but it's certainly gonna be a fraction of the time compared to dry pasta. You can really season it with whatever you want. Fresh pasta tastes so delicious by itself. I like to put just a little bit of garlic, some lemon, a little bit of parsley. It makes the ultimate meals. Fresh pasta, it is so delicious. It is so chewy. It is so flavorful. You can really decorate it with whatever flavors you enjoy. I like this round. We'll see you next time. Want some?