orecchiete

I made a bunch of orecchiette, which translates roughly to little ears, but they weren't so little—their edges were too fat and doughy—and then I started watching how loads of older Italian women make theirs on youtube, and then it became pretty clear to me that I don't know as much about making fresh pastas as I thought I did.  They're damn good.  To save my orecchiette from the garbage can, I did something very tedious: I trimmed each one with my tiniest biscuit cutter, removing the thicker outer areas, and then depressed each one with my thumb.  I made hundreds of them (they're drying now) (pasta and beans soon).

I might have used too much additional flour to keep them from sticking to me.  That's one of the things I don't know: how much flour?  Actually, it's more that I don't know the ideal dough recipe.  I mixed semolina and all purpose flour at a one-to-one ratio (with water of course), but perhaps that's not the best recipe.  In any case, check out these videos I found.  Check out how amazing their techniques are.  And really, how slightly various the results.  They're really amazing.  Oh, and there are tons of them on there.