Cavatelli con Salsiccia e Funghi Porcini (Traditional Italian Molise Cavatelli with Sausage and Porcini Mushrooms) Cavatelli are the working pasta of Molise, made from semola and water with no egg, rolled into ropes and dragged into small hollow shells with two fingers. The hollow is the point: it traps whatever is around it, which in the inland villages means sausage fat, mushroom juices and starch, never cream. This is a dish of three ingredients and one technique, and the

Cavatelli al Ragù Molisano (Italian Molise Cavatelli with Ragù) Molise is the smallest region in Italy after the Aosta Valley and the one nobody can place on a map, and its Sunday dish is a pot of ragù built on three cuts of pig and left on the lowest flame in the house for four hours. The pasta under it is cavatelli, rolled from semola and water by hand, no egg, and curled with two fingers against a wooden board. This is a ragù of pieces, not of mince. Pork ribs, a length of

Cavatelli con Ragù di Maiale (Traditional Italian Basilicata Cavatelli with Pork Ragù) Cavatelli are made by dragging a small piece of semolina dough across a wooden board with two fingers, so it rolls over on itself and opens into a shell with a hollow centre. That hollow is the point. It catches the small pieces of pork and thick tomato a lucanian ragù is built from, so the sauce arrives inside the pasta rather than beside it. The dough is semolina and water, with no egg. I