Strozzapreti Pasta
Strozzapreti is nearly fool-proof and goes great with meaty, chunky, tomato-based pasta sauces like the needskneaded.com Italian sausage and rosemary pasta sauce.
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 cup Semolina Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
Enough warm water to help form kneadable dough
Prep
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup semolina flour, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Use a whisk or a fork to combine the ingredients before adding water. This helps to properly incorporate the mixture so that the ingredients are evenly dispersed. Add water to the bowl slowly and stir with your hands until the dough forms a kneadable consistency.
Remove the dough from the bowl and place it onto a lightly floured work-surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth and stretchy. This should take about 5 minutes or so.
Wrap the dough in cling film and rest it in the fridge for no less than 30 minutes.
Removed rested dough from the fridge. Divide it in half, keeping half tightly wrapped in plastic outside of the fridge so it doesn’t dry out or harden.
Using a pasta sheet roller or rolling pin flatten the dough that you left out of the plastic wrap until it is approximately an 1/8th of an inch thick. This should be done on a lightly floured surface. If the dough is too sticky to work with dust lightly with flour, making sure not to make the dough to dry.
Using a knife or pasta cutter, like this one, cut the dough into strips that are a little over an inch wide.
Take one of these strips and with gentle hands let the dough stretch slightly before rolling into shape.
To form the strozzapreti, gently roll the strip between two hands. This will curl the sides of the strip inward making a loose and somewhat irregular tube shape.
Tear the dough at the desired length (approximately the length of four fingers), place on a lightly floured surface or sheet pan. Continue until you have shaped and torn the entire strip.
Continue by repeating steps 5-9 until you have shaped all of dough, including the half wrapped in plastic.
The strozzapreti can now be lightly dusted with flour and then refrigerated or frozen until needed. If freezing, make sure to first place the pasta on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, ensuring that each piece is separated. Once frozen, transfer the pasta to a freezer-safe bag.
Cook
Boil water that has been salted to taste in a large pot.
Cook the pasta until it floats to the top of the salted water, about 4-5 minutes. Frozen pasta will take slightly longer.
Remove the pasta, making sure not to discard the pasta water, and place it directly into a pot of your choice of sauce. If your sauce recipe calls for it, add the appropriate amount of pasta water to the sauce and pasta mixture.
Enjoy, because this is food you knead in your life.
Tips
While you don’t want your dough to be too sticky, you also don’t want it to be too dry. Dry dough will be harder to form the strozzapreti shape because the very slight sticking to your hands is what allows the dough to curl.
Using a pasta roller can really save time and effort. If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, seriously consider the Kitchenaid Pasta Roller.