Maccheroni with Pipis
A delicious and easy to make seafood pasta using pipis – otherwise known as clams or vongole. The sauce comes together relatively effortlessly; just garlic, chilli, capers, tomato and a bit of white wine before adding the pipis and some fresh parsley. You can use fresh chilli here, but I love the zing fermented chilli brings to the plate in this sauce.
Maccheroni al ferro is a tube of pasta made by rolling dough around a ferro – or rod/skewer of some description. There is a plethora of information in The Encyclopedia of Pasta on maccheroni (or maccarruni/maccherone) so if you don’t already have this book in your arsenal I highly recommend you grab yourself a copy.
While I’ve chosen to pair this with maccheroni, this sauce would be absolutely wonderful with linguine or another long shape too.
Maccheroni with Pipis
Ingredients
For the pasta
- 200 g semolina rimacinata
- 100 ml warm water
For the sauce
- 3 tablespoons EVOO
- 3 garlic cloves finely sliced
- 1 tbsp fermented chilli – you could also substitute for 1 fresh chilli diced
- 1 tbsp capers
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 10 or so cherry tomatoes halved
- 1/3 cup dry white wine
- 350 g pipis/clams – purged
- Fresh parsley finely chopped – about a handful
Instructions
For the pasta
- Follow the instructions for my semolina pasta dough here and rest for at least 1 hour.
- Once rested, cut 1/8 sized piece from the dough (keep the rest covered so it doesn’t dry out).
- Roll this out into a long and thin rope, about 1cm in width.
- Cut the rope into 6cm pieces.
- Using a wooden kebab skewer or a ferro if you have one, place the skewer just shy of centre length ways on a piece of the dough and press it down.
- Using your dominant hand, press the top part of the palm over base of the dough and roll it a few times to cover the skewer so the dough is now fully wrapped around.
- Switch to the fingers on both hands and roll the dough from the centre outwards a few times to lengthen the dough and ensure an even surface. Be mindful not to apply too much pressure otherwise the pasta will stick to the skewer.
- Gently twist/slide the pasta off the skewer and set aside on a clean tea towel to dry slightly while you work through the rest of the dough.
- You can watch a video of me making this shape here.
For the sauce and finishing touches
- Bring a pan of water to a rolling boil and salt generously.
- Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan and add the sliced garlic and fermented chilli.
- Allow that to cook gently over a low heat for 5 minutes, before adding the capers, tomato paste and cherry tomatoes – sauté for another couple of minutes until the tomatoes start to blister.
- Pour in the wine and the pipis and continue cooking for several minutes until the pipis have opened – discard any that don’t open.
- While the pipis are cooking, start cooking the maccheroni – they will only take 2-3 minutes if cooking from fresh.
- Once the pasta is al dente, scoop out of the water with a slotted spoon and add directly into the sauce (take some of that pasta water with it!!) along with a handful of chopped parsley.
- Toss and stir to marry. Serve immediately.
