Actually very easy

Pasta

The beliefPasta is assumed to require a machine, a special flour and Italian ancestry.

The truthSemolina and water at 30% hydration. The rest is a rolling pin and a little patience.

45 minutes

How to make it

What you need

400 g durum semolina, or 300 g semolina with 100 g flour
120 g warm water
1 teaspoon of salt

How the engine read this list (3 lines)

400 g	Durum semolina	semolina
120 g	Warm water	water
6 g	Salt	salt

An empty weight means that line could not be turned into grams — either the amount is open ("to taste") or the ingredient has no record here. Neither enters the sum as zero; they do not enter it at all.

Heap the semolina on the worktop, make a well and bring it together with the salted water a little at a time. It will look dry and ragged at first — that is correct, do not add water.
Knead firmly for ten minutes. It becomes a smooth, stiff ball — do not expect it to soften like bread dough.
Wrap it and rest it for thirty minutes so the gluten relaxes — unrested dough shrinks back as you roll it.
Divide it and roll each piece to one or two millimetres. Roll the sheet up and cut it to width: five-millimetre ribbons, two-centimetre squares, or shapes twisted by hand.
Dust generously with semolina and spread the pieces out so they do not touch. Cook fresh for three to four minutes, dried for eight to ten.

Why it works

What separates pasta from bread is not the flour but the water. Bread dough sits at 65–75% hydration; pasta dough at 28–32% — so dry that it seems not to come together at all. That low water makes the gluten build a tight, aligned network rather than the loose, airy one of bread, and it is why pasta holds its bite in boiling water instead of dissolving. Durum semolina is preferred because its protein runs high, 13–15%, and its starch takes up less water as it cooks. Drying is part of the technique and has to be slow: if the surface dries faster than the inside, the outer skin shrinks and cracks. Even the bronze dies of commercial production are mechanical rather than romantic — bronze leaves a rougher surface than Teflon, and that roughness is what holds the sauce.

The rough sum

526 grams going in

1440 kcal in total

100% of the mass has figures behind it. This is the sum of what GOES IN rather than of what comes out. Wherever something evaporates, drains or ferments the two differ: a kilo of milk is 150 g of cheese.

Diets it qualifies for

Vegan Vegetarian Lactose-free

Storage & shelf life

How long it keeps

Fresh, floured, in the fridge: 2 days
Fresh, frozen: 3 months
Fully dried, in a jar: 6 months
Half dried: Does not keep — it moulds

The safety of dried pasta rests on one number: the moisture must fall below 12%. Above that threshold the water activity is enough for mould and a jar will spoil within weeks. The practical test is simple — try to snap a piece: a clean crack means dry, bending means not. The dangerous state is half-dry, so if the drying has not finished, put it in the freezer instead.

When to bin it Any mould spot, dusty white bloom or musty smell in the jar means all of it goes. Mould in dried pasta says the moisture never fell far enough, and it is never limited to one piece.

History

Where it comes from

The story that Marco Polo brought pasta from China is not true: dried dough existed around the Mediterranean before him, and Arab geographers describe dried noodles being made in Sicily in the twelfth century. Anatolia has its own tradition of dried dough in erişte and kesme, built on the same logic: keeping wheat not as bread but as dough that survives for months. Pasta is a storage method rather than a dish — grain made dry, portable and edible within minutes.

The knack

Salt the water at 7–10 g per litre, a little less than the sea. Do not add oil: it floats on the surface, never touches the pasta and does nothing at all.
Keep a ladle of the cooking water. Its starch binds the sauce to the pasta, and that single step is half the difference between home and restaurant pasta.
To dry it, dry it slowly in the shade. Sun or a radiator cracks the pasta and it breaks apart in the water.

Dough and grain