Flour & Water Dough
A simple, rustic dough made with soft wheat flour (00 or all-purpose) and water — no eggs, and sometimes a touch of olive oil. This is the dough of necessity, born in times when eggs were a luxury reserved for the boss, not for the pasta. It produces a pleasantly chewy, slightly elastic pasta perfect for thick hand-rolled shapes like pici, the fat Tuscan noodles.
Ingredients
- 350g all-purpose flour or 00 flour (about 2 1/2 cups; a small percentage of semolina can be added for strength)
- 170g lukewarm water (90°F) (about 2/3 cup, plus more as needed)
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (30ml)
- 1 pinch fine sea salt
Method
- Place the flour on a clean work surface and form a well in the center. Add the salt to the flour.
- Pour the lukewarm water and olive oil into the well. Using a fork, gradually draw the flour into the liquid, working from the inside of the well outward.
- When the dough becomes too thick for a fork, use your hands to bring it together. Add more water a teaspoon at a time if the dough is too hard and crumbly to come together.
- Knead the dough for 6 to 8 minutes until smooth and elastic. As Vetri notes, this dough can be kneaded for slightly less time than egg doughs — just 6 to 7 minutes.
- Pat the dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- After resting, pull off small pieces and roll them into ropes or roll the dough into a sheet and cut into strips, depending on the shape you are making.
Tips
- As Rosa at La Chiusa restaurant told Marc Vetri: 'When no one had anything, the eggs were for the boss, not for the pasta.' This dough is proof that great pasta needs very little.
- An A-Z of Pasta notes that while pici are normally made with plain 00 flour, a percentage of semolina flour gives strength to the dough.
- The Encyclopedia of Pasta's pici recipe uses 15.8 oz all-purpose flour to 9.5 oz lukewarm water — roughly a 5:3 ratio by weight.
- This dough benefits from a long rest. Some recipes in The Encyclopedia of Pasta call for up to 3 hours total resting time for the best texture.
- The olive oil adds a little fat for pliability but is optional — the most austere versions use only flour, water, and salt.