The World's Easiest Pasta To Make Doesn't Require Any Equipment

If making pasta from scratch sounds like a laborious chore, we have good news: It certainly doesn't have to be. In Francine's Segan's "Pasta Modern: New & Inspired Recipes from Italy," Segan labels frascarelli as the world's easiest pasta. This polenta-style dish doesn't call for any particular equipment such as pasta machines or rolling devices to make. You simply need a flat surface, water, and flour. Originally, flour was dusted on top of a surface like a large pasta board and water sprinkled on top to turn the fragments into small pieces of pasta, helped along by rubbing it with your fingers. Other recipe versions of frascarelli pasta include adding salt, including an egg in the flour or the water, or even boiling some rice before adding flour in a simmering pot to then ladle and plate. 

Once made, the frascarelli is briefly boiled in salted water, and then can be crowned with tomato sauce, crumbles of sausage, and shavings of pecorino Romano cheese. A meal of frascarelli can be eaten directly off a wooden board known as spianatora, where the sauce is simply ladled onto the frascarelli and everyone helps themseles. The dish is often still served on these boards today, offering a communal experience for family-style dining. Also called polenta alla spianatora — polenta on the table — when polenta is used instead of frascarelli, these large spreads let diners dig in as they please.

Origins of frascarelli may come before the Romans when farmers and their families needed something quick to make for dinner during busy seasons when work called for energy spent elsewhere. Several recipe variations of frascarelli can be made by using instant polenta that can be spread on top of a cutting board before a sauce, like ragu sauce, is ladled on top of the mass. In Marche, Italy, frascarelli is topped with a sauce made with guanciale or pancetta. 

Think of the creamy carby spread as a blank canvas for your choice of ingredients. Top the easy pasta with a vegetarian marina or smoked pork, or offer several different options for dinner guests to choose from in order to dress up plates according to their preferences. Though the rugged presentation of pasta may leave something to be desired in the aesthetic department, this simple serving delivers when it comes to comfort and taste.