Pasta Dough with Cacao

Surprisingly enough, pasta made with the inclusion of cocoa powder has a longstanding, if not widely known, tradition in Italy. Historically, it was served with only dolce-forte or sweet and spicy sauce, because the strong flavor of the cocoa is difficult to pair with anything else. I use cacao instead of cocoa both because it’s healthier and because the flavor is subtle and on the cusp of sweet and savory, so the noodles are more easily paired with sauce. This dough is remarkably easy to work with and is a striking shade of mahogany. You can add more or less cacao powder depending how deep you want your brown to be. The dough sheeted into pasta works very well with richer meat sauces, such as Pollo Agrodolce.