Pasta & Fresh Dough · Main
Semola e Acqua, the Eggless Durum Dough
- Easy
- 20 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
A quiet dish that lets its main ingredient speak: season well and stand aside.
Ingredients
- 500 g semola rimacinata di grano duro (100%)
- 250 g water at 45C (113F) (50%)
- 8 g fine sea salt (1.6%)
- extra semola for the board and tray
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Fresh pastaKneading doughSalted water & the float testResting dough: the pause that does the work
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Dissolve the salt in the warm water, pour it over the semola while turning with one hand, and keep turning until no dry grain is left and the mass holds as a coarse, pebbled rubble.
- Knead 10 minutes, driving the heel forward and folding back, until the surface stops tearing and takes a dull sheen; the ball should feel as firm as stiff modelling clay. 10 min
- Wrap and rest 30 minutes at room temperature, then cut the ball in half and read the cut face: one even yellow, with no chalky white core. 30 min
- Roll ropes and drag or press them into cavatelli, trofie or busiate on a board dusted with semola only, dry 30 minutes on a semola tray, and boil 6 to 8 minutes at 100C (212F) salted at 10 g per litre. 30 min
- For a bronze die extruder drop the water to 150 g (30%), so the mix stays a damp sand that clumps only when squeezed in the fist; anything wetter binds the auger and the strands weld together as they leave the die.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Kneading dough 57 recipes
- The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
- The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
- Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
- Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
- After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.
Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.
Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes
- It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
- It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
- The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
- It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
- Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.
Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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