Chitarra means “guitar” in Italian, and the shape, a specialty of Abruzzo, gets its name from the device with which it’s made—a wooden frame strung with metal wire like a guitar. The way it works is that a sheet of pasta dough is pressed down onto the strings, which cut the sheet into long, square spaghetti-like strands. We make chitarra alternately this way and by cutting the sheets with a long knife.
Recipe information
Yield
makes 6 servings of regular spaghetti or 4 servings black spaghetti
Ingredients
Preparation
Roll the dough out to the third thickest setting on the pasta sheeter (number 5 using a KitchenAid attachment) according to the directions given in “Matt’s Scuola di Pasta” (page 158). Dust a baking sheet lightly with semolina and dust a work surface with flour. Lay one sheet of the dough on top of a chitarra and use a rolling pin to roll the length of the pasta, pressing it into the strings to form thin strips. (Alternatively, to cut the strands by hand, roll the dough out to the thinnest setting on a pasta machine—8 on a KitchenAid mixer—and place the sheets on the baking sheet, dusting lightly with semolina between each sheet. When you’ve rolled all of the pasta dough, trim the edges of one sheet to make a rectangle with straight edges. Using the first sheet as a template, cut the remaining sheets so you have a stack of rectangular pasta sheets. Cut the rectangles crosswise into 1/16-inch-wide strips that are as long as the sheet is wide.) Use the spaghetti or cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap and refrigerate the pasta up to one day. To freeze, place the baking sheet in the freezer until the pasta is firm to the touch. Transfer the pasta to sealable plastic bags, or an airtight container, dusting off the excess semolina, and freeze for up to two weeks (any longer and the pasta will dry out and crack).
