Culurgiones

Step 1 : The Preparation

To make the dough for your culurgiones, place the flour and durum wheat semolina on your work surface. Form a well in the center and crack the eggs into it. Mix everything together with your hands until it forms a dough. If the dough feels too dry, you can carefully add some lukewarm water. Knead the dough for at least another 5 minutes. Then wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour.

Step 2 : Prepare the filling

While the dough is resting, you can prepare the ingredients for the filling. Boil the potatoes, unpeeled, in boiling water for about 20 minutes. Peel and finely chop the shallots and garlic. Then grate the Pecorino cheese and wash the mint. Pat it dry before chopping it very finely.

Step 3 : The Pasta Filling

Peel the previously cooked potatoes—preferably while they’re still hot, since that’s when they’re easiest to peel. Then press them through a potato ricer into a bowl. Add olive oil, salt, saffron, mint, and Pecorino, and mix everything together well.

Step 4 : The Culurgiones

Now roll out the dough and fill it before shaping your culurgiones using a very special folding technique. Cut off a piece of the dough, knead it briefly, and flatten it with the palm of your hand or a rolling pin until it’s about 1 cm thick.

Next, pass the dough through the pasta machine and then fold it in half. Repeat this step about five times until the dough is evenly soft. For this, select the setting with the widest roller gap (pasta machine: setting 0). Now take the dough sheets one by one and pass them through the pasta machine with progressively narrower roller spacing until you reach the desired thickness for your pasta. Refer to your pasta machine’s instructions for details.

Use a water glass to cut out even circles from the dough. Place about one teaspoon of filling in the center of each circle.

Step 5 : Folding the Culurgiones

Now it’s time to fold: Place one of the filled pasta circles in the palm of your hand and fold the disc in half so that it forms a half-moon shape. Then pinch one end of the dough together and tuck it in slightly. Now, alternately pinch the edge of the dough from left to right to create a folded edge that looks like an ear of wheat. Once the pasta pocket is sealed, you can remove any excess filling and twist the end like a cord. Done! Now you can cook your finished culurgiones in boiling salted water for 3–4 minutes.

Tip

THE CULURGIONES FOLDING TECHNIQUE

The typical Culurgiones folding technique takes a little practice. Depending on how often you fold from left to right, the pattern will become finer or coarser. If you’re having trouble, you can, of course, fold the ravioli more simply and use a fork, for example, to help seal the pasta circles.

Step 6 : The Sauce

Heat olive oil in a pot and add the shallots and garlic. Sauté the ingredients over medium heat. Add the strained tomatoes and season the sauce with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Step 7 : The Finale

Toss the culurgiones with the hot tomato sauce and arrange the pasta on a plate. Sprinkle some grated Pecorino on top, garnish with fresh basil, and enjoy. Buon appetito!