Fileja is a
traditional handmade egg-less pasta from southern Italy, specifically Calabria
where many of my ancestors lived. It has a distinctive look and a shape that
traps and holds sauce very well. Because it is a substantial pasta it has a
nice chewy bite that goes well with a rich meat sauce. We usually serve them
with a slow cooked pork ragu or with chunky roasted tomatoes.
The technique
for making fileja involves rolling a piece of pasta dough around a metal or
wooden rod or skewer. In Calabrian dialect this pasta making tool is called a
dinaculu. I made our dinaculu by
snipping off the long side of a wire coat hanger. Credit for that idea goes to
Rosetta Costantino in her book My Calabria. It is the perfect tool for making
this interesting and versatile pasta. One Christmas I gave sets of them to my
kids as stocking stuffers calling them "pasta machines".
There are
similar types of pasta in other parts of Italy. In Sicily, they are called
busiate. The general term for pasta that is made by rolling the dough around a
steel or wooden rod is maccheroni al ferratto - literally maccheroni made on
iron.
Here two of the
dinaculu I made -
Video on how to make them -
Proportions for making enough for 4 people as a main dish - 3 cups of flour - semolina or unbleached all-purpose or a mix of half semolina and half all purpose flour 3/4 cup water (approx)
The amount of
water can vary depending on the humidity in your kitchen and the
moisture level in your choice of flour. If using all-purpose, we like King Arthur brand. Mound the flour on a work surface or in a bowl and add the water a little at a time to form a dough. Knead until smooth and allow to rest
for 30 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap.
Rolling is best done on a sturdy smooth surface like a kitchen table or counter top. Dust the surface you will be working on with just a little flour - not too much or the dough won't roll and wrap properly. Pull off a small piece of dough, a little bigger than a
marble, and make a short rope with it, about 2-3 inches long and almost 1/2-inch in diameter. Gently push the rod into the pasta lengthwise and at a slight angle. Using only light pressure
from your fingertips roll each piece forward away from you and then back again several times, stretching it a little as you go. The dough will wrap itself around the rod to
form the fileja. Then slide the pasta off the rod. Repeat with the remaining dough. Lay the fileja out on a towel or sheet to dry for at least 30 minutes to an hour before cooking. With a little practice you can make dozens of these quickly. And if you are having friends over, pour some wine and let everyone do some rolling.
You will notice
the surface of the pasta has a slight roughness. This is typical of fresh hand
made pasta and one of the reasons it's so much better than store bought That
roughness helps the sauce adhere and absorb into the pasta.
Note: Fresh pasta does not take as long to cook as store bought dried. Figure about 5 minutes max in rapidly boiling water for fileja, less if you are adding them to the sauce in the pan to finish cooking. Don't over cook them ! We make these at home regularly where it's a fun group activity. As you can see in this photo, different hands make different variations on the theme. Like snowflakes, no two fileja are the same...
With roasted tomatoes - Letting the fileja, or any type of pasta, finish cooking in the sauce lets the pasta absorb the flavors of the sauce much better than just ladling the sauce over the finished pasta in a bowl.
Pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines) is a classic southern Italian dish. The ingredients typically include sardines, fennel, raisins and pine nuts. The pasta of choice is bucatini, a thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole running through the center. The whole thing is topped with toasted bread crumbs and fennel fronds - yeah, tha's right!
Instead of bucatini, our version uses fileja, a pasta home to the region of Calabria, Italy where many of my ancestors were from. Fileja is made by rolling a marble sized piece of pasta dough around a steel or wood rod as in the photo below. It is a wonderful thick chewy pasta that goes with all kinds of sauces. It's our favorite go-to homemade pasta. So easy to make by hand, and you don't need a pasta rolling machine. See this link on how to make it at home - How to make fileja pasta
In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil (add more if needed) over medium heat. Add fennel and onion and cook, stirring, for about 15 minutes or until softened and slightly caramelized.
Add garlic and stir for 2 minutes.
Add saffron with soaking liquid and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
Stir in the raisins.
Add the canned sardines.
Add ½ cup warm water and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. When the pasta is al dente, drain and add to the sardine fennel sauce. Stir together.
Make bread crumbs from good crusty country bread in a food processor to a coarse texture. Then toast in a frying pan with olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Make about two cups.
Here is a video by chef John that we based our version on -
