Farro Spaghetti

I don’t have a literal culinary bucket list but I do have a mental one. While I do seem to be adding things to the list quicker than I can find the time to make them, I can finally put a check mark next to pasta. I was provided with a package of Tuscan Fields Farro Perlato and decided to try something new: farro spaghetti. Sometimes I think I’m a little too fearless in trying new recipes…

So, before we start: what’s farro, you may ask? Farro just another grain in the wheat family. It looks similar to grains of rice and is often used in a similar fashion: accompanying entrees, in soups, and so on. But, you can also buy it in pasta form. In this case, as farro spaghetti, think of it as an alternative to whole wheat pasta.

While grinding the farro might sound like a lot of extra work, if you have a food processor or spice/coffee grinder, it’s really not. It took me about all of five minutes to pop the grain into my spice grinder and run it through. For all the hype people put on pasta, and all the tools you’re supposed to have, I was very satisfied with how easy and quickly I was able to make the dough and then roll it out for spaghetti. Sure, it wasn’t perfect but it still tasted awful good.

The resulting farro spaghetti had a great texture and my husband preferred it to the boxed whole wheat spaghetti we occasionally have. In the future I’d make sure to cut it thinner and try to roll it out thinner but generally I was very pleased with how it turned out.

1 cup of ground farro
1 cup of semolina flour
3 eggs
2 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt

On a clean, flat work surface, combine the farro, semolina flour and salt.
Make a well in the center and add the eggs and the olive oil.
Working from the inside out, slowly combine the wet and dry ingredients.
Once the ingredients are combined enough that the wet ingredients aren’t “escaping,” continue mixing and kneading by hand until fully combined.
Either by hand or by mixer, knead the dough for about 15 minutes.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and leave at room temperature to rest for an hour.
For ease in rolling out the dough, split the dough into smaller pieces. Roll as thin as possible or desired.
With a knife or cutter, slice the rolled dough into long strands for the spaghetti. They could be as wide or as thin as desired.
Cook the farro spaghetti in a boiling pot of water until al dente.

(As stated above, I was provided with complimentary Tuscan Fields Farro. The company had no input or influence over this post, the recipe or anything else.)

Soundtrack: Serge Gainsbourg’s “Monsieur Gainsbourg Originals,” Falco’s “Falco 3,” David Bowie’s “The Next Day”