My Summer Project-Learning How To Make Hand Shaped Pastas

I kept seeing pictures of these fun shaped pastas and it got me curious. I signed up for some cooking classes and started making them. In a way it’s therapeutic, it also kept my interest which is hard to accomplish. I kept practicing different shapes and freezing them on sheet trays. Each time was as fun as the first time. I’m going to keep making them and find my favorites and then I’m going to teach you.

Let’s start with the semolina and water pasta dough that made these Hand Formed Pasta shapes. My favorite shapes were orecchiette, the “little ear” pasta of Puglia and gnocchetti made with a gnocchi board. Then the pasta is cooked and tossed in a Simple Tomato Sauce and garnished with fresh basil by Social Pasta Club

This was surprisingly easy to make Herb Laminated Pasta using soft herbs. It’s very important to use soft herbs otherwise any hard stems will poke holes in your pasta sheets. Then you can make any shape pasta you want. I chose to keep some pasta sheets whole for lasagna and made mezzalune shaped pasta stuffed a cheese stuffing.