Domenica Marchetti Wants You to Cut Pasta Badly

Rigatoni and farfalle tend to hog the pasta spotlight, but there are other charming shapes you should be paying attention to. Domenica Marchetti, author of eight books on Italian home cooking and a Milk Street Small Group Workshop teacher, would like to introduce you to a scrap-cut called maltagliati.

Maltagliati—which translates to “badly cut”—is a short and flat pasta shape especially suited for hearty soups and meaty sauces. In other words, it’s exactly what you’ll be craving this winter. In the virtual Milk Street Small Group Workshop: Regional Winter Pasta with Domenica Marchetti coming up on January 29th, you’ll learn firsthand about Domenica’s favorite pasta dough as well as how to shape it. You’ll also learn how to make a meaty, lightly-spiced ragù bianco. Read our conversation below to learn a bit more about what inspires Domenica’s pasta pursuits, what she thinks of store-bought boxed pasta, and her tools of the trade.

What makes you passionate about pasta?

Well, my mom used to make pasta when I was little. She was from the Abruzzo region, so she would make spaghetti alla chitarra (a chittarra is a pasta-making tool with strings like a guitar), which is an Abruzzese noodle specialty, but she also used to make ravioli and other types of pasta. On Christmas day we used to have cappelletti, which is a little bonnet stuffed with meat and served with broth. So when my sister and I were little, we used to “help” her in the kitchen—she would basically do everything, and we would poke little holes in the ravioli or the cappelletti. She had us doing little finishing touches on her pasta when we were little. I’ve always enjoyed it, but I really got into it when I started writing about food and looking at Italian cuisine more regionally. In 2011, I published a book called The Glorious Pasta of Italy, and that really sent me down the pasta path. That’s when I really started developing my skills in the pasta kitchen.

For the record, is it “pasta” or “macaroni”?

Pasta. For sure. We never said macaroni in my house. My mother would occasionally say “maccheroni” because it specifically refers to noodles—I think it’s a more southern term. Abruzzo is kind of culturally part of the South of Italy, but we never called pasta “macaroni,” it was always “pasta” or this specific type of pasta. I mentioned the spaghetti alla chitarra. Another name for that is maccheroni alla chitarra, so that’s the only other context in which we would have said it. My mother was emphatically not Italian-American, she was Italian-Italian, and she made a distinction. My Dad was Italian-American. He was born in the US, and both his parents were born in Italy.

So “sauce” or “gravy”?

Oh my goodness—sauce. Definitely sauce! Gravy is what you put on turkey on Thanksgiving.

What’s your take on boxed store-brand pasta?

I love boxed pasta. I think a lot of people confuse boxed pasta and fresh pasta in terms of quality. People always assume fresh pasta is better than boxed pasta, but it’s really like comparing apples and oranges because the two are very different products and the results are very different when you cook them. Fresh pasta is generally much more delicate, especially if you’re talking about egg pasta, there’s also fresh pasta made with just semolina flour and water which is more sturdy. But still I would never disparage boxed pasta in relation to fresh pasta. I love them both equally, and they both have their purpose. In fact, with dishes like Spaghetti a la Carbonara or Cacio e Pepe where the pasta has to be vigorously tossed with the sauce in order to get that creamy consistency, I much prefer a boxed pasta. If you do it with fresh noodles, they’re much more susceptible to falling apart.

Why then make fresh pasta at home?

Well it has a different purpose. For instance, I never make lasagna with boxed pasta because lasagna is meant to be a delicate dish. Even the more Southern versions—although I’m really thinking of lasagna alla Bolognese which is either made with spinach noodles or egg noodles—the pasta has to be very thin because you’re creating many layers. If the pasta is thick or sturdy, you end up with a very stodgy, heavy lasagna. Whereas if you’re using fresh [thin] noodles, and layer them with a judicious amount of sauce or bechamel, it ends up being something much lighter, even ethereal, if you’ve got the consistency correct.

The other thing I’ll say about making pasta at home is that it’s a lot of fun. People tend to be intimidated by it but it’s like anything, the more you do it the better you get at it. Instead of worrying about it, roll up your sleeves and give it a try. If it doesn’t work out this time—if your dough is too dry, say, and it cracks or whatever—the next time you’ll know you need to add less flour, more liquid, or more egg. It’s just a process of learning, and once you get it down it’s a lot of fun. If I make a big batch of ravioli or cappelletti and I finish stuffing the pasta and I have it all laid out on a table cloth dusted with semolina—you look at that and you can really feel a sense of accomplishment. It’s something you did with your own two hands, and it feels great.

Do you recommend equipment or special tools for making fresh pasta at home?

Well, if you’re an Italian, it depends on where you’re from. If you’re from Bologna and Emilia-Romagna, they really kind of frown upon the pasta machine—hand-crank or anything. They’re the original pastai (pasta makers), they’re the ones who have the long rolling pins and roll out the dough to a beautiful thinness.

My mom used a pasta machine when I was growing up, so I learned how to roll out pasta with a pasta machine. I also have a fair bit of repetitive strain injury, so I don’t want to do anything to make things worse for my wrists. I think the pasta machine is a dream and a life-saver and allows me to make fresh pasta really easily.

I don’t subscribe to the belief that hand-rolled pasta is better than pasta rolled in a pasta machine. I know that those from the Bologna region really do believe that there is a difference—and perhaps there is—but whatever [the difference] is not enough in my book. I have an old Atlas hand-crank roller that I’ve had since I got married 33 years ago, and it still works. It has never needed anything, you know, every time I need it I just pull it out and it works beautifully.

But you still don’t need that many tools. There’s the Kitchen Aid pasta roller attachment which makes it a little bit easier because you have two hands free with the machine going. And for ravioli you need to roll out the pasta to sheets, and then you need a pasta cutter—whether it’s fluted or straight—or even a cookie cutter or a ravioli stamp to cut out the ravioli. It’s pretty unplugged when you think about it.

Your class focuses on an uncommon homemade pasta shape: What’s special about Maltagliati pasta shape?

I really like this pasta shape because it’s kind of a casual shape. “Maltagliati” means “badly cut.” I think the way this pasta originated is, when cutting out ravioli or certain shapes you end up with scraps of pasta dough leftover. So Italian housewives would put all the scraps together, reroll them and kind of haphazardly cut them into rectangles or whatever shape—just quickly cut them with a knife or a roller just to use up the leftovers. Then they’d serve this pasta with soup, like pasta fagioli or other hearty soups. It’s a way to use scraps of pasta dough.

I’ve elevated it slightly with my recipe. I really love the pasta dough. It’s one of my favorite recipes because it’s got a mix of flours. The recipe has a little bit of pasta flour, a little bit of all-purpose flour and a little bit of semola rimacinata (semolina flour). I think the three of those together give it a really nice consistency. It’s sturdy but also still quite delicate and you can roll it out pretty thin. And it is an egg pasta dough. I think that makes it very accommodating to all sorts of preparations. You can make pappardelle with this dough, or tagliatelle, or farfalle or whatever. Maltagliati, especially if you make it with a fluted pasta cutter, you can make these pretty diamond shapes. You can use them for soups and you can use them for ragù. I just think it’s a pretty shape so I just want to showcase it.

What’s your favorite way to eat maltagliati?

I think maltagliati takes well to soups and to hearty sauces. The pasta is flat and wide like tagliatelle or parpardelle, but it’s shorter, so this makes spearing it and tossing it with sauce easier. So I enjoy it with ragù, but I also enjoy it with a hearty vegetable soup like pasta e fagioli, which is pasta and beans. It soaks up the broth, so you end up with a thick soup with beans and maybe carrots, celery, and onion. It’s a good warming soup that you can have on a cold day. You drizzle it with olive oil and it can be “in bianco,” which is without tomato, or you can cook tomato in the soup. Sort of like the ragù we do for the Milk Street class, it’s white, but you could dollop in some tomato if you wanted to.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.