Homemade Bigoli Pasta

Name: Homemade Bigoli Pasta
Yield: makes 2 pounds of fresh bigoli, serving 6 to 8
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour, or 3 cups all-purpose flour and 1 cup whole-wheat flour, plus more all-purpose flour for working with the dough; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon soft butter; 1/2 cup warm milk, or more as needed; 3 large eggs, lightly beaten; A food processor fitted with steel blade for mixing the dough; A genuine torchio hand press (see Sources, page 340), or a home pasta-extruder (standalone machine or electric-mixer attachment) or meat grinder (machine or mixer attachment)

December 14, 2011

Thick and chewy, with the nuttiness of whole wheat, bigoli is the signature pasta of the Veneto. At Ristorante Celeste in Venegazzu, outside of Treviso, Giuliano Tonon taught me how to extrude fresh dough into strands with a torchio, the traditional hand press. But bigoli is not only a restaurant treat—most home cooks in the region have a torchio in the kitchen and make bigoli every week! Happily, this pleasure is now available to Americans since I have found a genuine torchio for sale on the Internet (see Sources, page 340). Bigoli can also be made with an electric pasta-extruder or a meat grinder. The two traditional sauces on the following pages are packed with flavor. With homemade bigoli, they each make a big, gutsy pasta, very worth the effort and very Venetian. (And if you can’t make your own bigoli, whole wheat spaghetti will be delicious with either sauce.)

Recipe notes

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