Bigoli

Bigoli (BEE-goh-lee) are fat spaghetti found in the Veneto and Lombardy regions. In Tuscany they are called pici (PEE-chee). And I’ve seen them called spaghettoni (big spaghetti) in other regions. Bigoli tend to have rough edges which helps them hold flavor better. They are traditionally made using a special pasta extruder called a bigolaro – refer to the Cooking Gear page for more information. The original bigolaro was invented in 1638, so this is old school. Bigoli go great with Cacio e Pepe. They do not go well with tomato sauce (not sure why). We would like to try them with other sauces such as Ragù or Pesto di Basilico.

In theory, using a bigolaro is simple. You just put a “log” of dough into the extruder and turn the crank and it comes out the bottom. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple for one reason: the bigoli will all stick together. So, we use two tricks to avoid this: 1) add extra semola to the dough to make it less wet, 2) throw up semola as the bigoli are coming out the bottom. Even then, it can be challenging.

500 g (1.1 lb) homemade Pasta all’Uovo (normally I make this ahead of time and freeze it in 500 g vacuum-sealed packages)

1. Clamp your bigolaro securely to a countertop. I screwed mine into a 2x4 and then I clamp my 2x4 onto the kitchen counter. Make your 2x4 long enough so the clamps don’t get in the way. By the way, I first used a drill bit to make the extrusion holes just a tiny bit larger (barely).

2. Cover a bar stool with a towel and use a big wide bowl on the stool under the bigolaro. Put some semola (same used when making the pasta dough) into the big wide bowl.

3. Knead as much semola as you can into the pasta dough to make it less wet. It will start getting firm and you’ll need to do things like roll it flat, sprinkle some semola, then fold it back up and knead it.

4. Roll out the dough using your hands into a long narrow log that will be narrow enough to fit into the bigolaro. You’ll need to cut the log into two pieces.

5. Place part of the log into the bigolaro and start turning the crank to take up the slack.

6. Now here’s the fun part. Turn the crank until about an inch of bigoli extrude out the bottom.

7. Don’t touch them! They’ll stick together. Instead, throw up some semola to coat the newly exposed bigoli with semola. Then you can carefully touch them but continue to try to coat them in semola as you do.

8. Repeat steps 6-7 until the bigoli are the length you want. Then use a sharp knife to cut them and place them on a drying rack, but the kitchen counter will also work.

9. Continue like this until all the dough is gone.

10. There’s one more fun part: cleaning the dough out of the extrusion nosels. I’ve tried many ways, including soaking in baking-soda water and even using a WaterPik flosser! The best thing is to let the nosels completely dry out for 24 hours (and no more than 48 hours), then take a bamboo skewer and push each dried clog of dough out in one piece (see photo below). I would avoid using anything metal because it can damage the nosels.