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Sfoglia.

Grain on Monday.Dough on Tuesday.Nothing kept over.

Semolina starts turning within three weeks of milling, and by week six the dough has a flatness you can taste but cannot name. So we buy the grain and not the flour, and the stone mill runs on the one day the room is dark.

Coarse golden durum semolina freshly milled, spilling onto dark steel.
Floured hands rolling a thin sheet of egg pasta dough across a worn wooden board.

What happens while nothing appears to happen.

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Nothing here is fermenting. There is no yeast in an egg dough. The rest is the semolina finishing the job of absorbing water, which takes two days and not the ten minutes a mixer implies.

  1. Mill

    Hour 0

    Whole durum berries into the stone mill. The semolina leaves it warm.

  2. Hydrate

    Hour 1

    Semolina, yolk and a little water. Mixed until it looks wrong, then left.

  3. Rest

    Hour 4

    Fourteen degrees, wrapped. The water finds the rest of the flour on its own.

  4. Laminate

    Hour 28

    Folded and rolled back on itself six times to line the gluten up.

  5. Cut

    Hour 47

    Down to the eighth notch, then hand cut on the board.

  6. Pass

    Hour 48

    Ninety seconds in salted water, then straight into the pan with the sauce.

The same sheet, finished six ways.

  • Tagliatelle

    Rolled to the eighth notch, cut by hand on the board

    0.9 mm

  • Pappardelle

    Torn wide with a wheel so the edge stays ragged and holds sauce

    1.1 mm

  • Garganelli

    Ridged one at a time on a comb, around a dowel

    1.0 mm

  • Cavatelli

    Dragged with two thumbs, semolina only, no egg

    3 mm

  • Agnolotti dal plin

    Pinched shut, one pinch each, about four hundred a service

    0.6 mm

  • Tonnarelli

    Pressed through the guitar, square in section

    2 mm