Guitar-String Pasta with Lamb Ragù

Ingredients

• 200 g Semolina flour
• 100 g Flour
• 3 whole Eggs
• 500 g Lamb shoulder
• 1 small Onion
• 1 whole Carrot
• 1 stalk Celery
• 400 g Tomato passata
• 120 ml Red wine
• 3 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 sprig Rosemary
• 1 whole Bay leaf
• 60 g Aged pecorino
• 1 to taste Salt
• 1 to taste Black pepper

Steps

1. Make the pasta dough: mound the semolina and 00 flour together, crack in the eggs and add a pinch of salt.
2. Work into a smooth, firm dough, kneading 10 minutes, then wrap and rest 30 minutes at room temperature.
3. Trim the lamb of excess fat and cut it into small dice, no larger than 1 cm; the small pieces will melt into the sauce during the long cooking.
4. In a heavy pan, gently soften the finely chopped onion, carrot and celery in olive oil with the rosemary sprig and bay leaf until soft and lightly golden, about 8 minutes.
5. Raise the heat and add the diced lamb.
6. Brown it well on all sides until a deep crust forms; do not crowd the pan, so the meat sears rather than steams.
7. Pour in the red wine and let it bubble and evaporate fully, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
8. Add the passata, season with salt and pepper, add a ladle of hot water, lower the heat and simmer very gently, partly covered, for about 2 hours, adding a little water whenever it gets too dry.
9. The ragù should stay dense but moist.
10. Roll the rested dough into sheets about 2-3 mm thick.
11. Lay each sheet over the chitarra and press through with a rolling pin so the strings cut it into square-section spaghetti; if you have no chitarra, cut by hand or machine into thick square strands.
12. Cook the chitarra pasta in plenty of salted boiling water until just tender, 3-4 minutes for fresh pasta.
13. Drain the pasta, reserving a little cooking water, and toss it in the pan with the lamb ragù over low heat for a minute, loosening with the reserved water if needed so the sauce clings.
14. Serve hot, topped with a generous grating of aged pecorino and a turn of black pepper.

Tips

• Use semolina (semola rimacinata) alongside the flour for the firm bite that lets the chitarra cut clean square strands. The ragù tastes best made a day ahead; lamb shoulder gives the most flavour. Keep the simmer barely trembling so the meat turns tender, not tough.