The recipe for su filindeu pasta dough is simpler than you might expect. It takes only three ingredients to make: semolina flour, salt, and water, which is mixed into the dough and used to moisten it whenever it starts to dry out or lose elasticity. But it isn’t the ingredients that make su filindeu so hard to make. It’s the technique.
While the majority of pasta varieties can easily be replicated by commercial machines, su filindeu can only be made by hand. The noodles are made by rolling out and stretching the dough over and over again until super thin strands form — all by hand. These thin strands are then layered onto each other in a crisscross pattern and air-dried outside. According to Food Beast, pasta company Barilla attempted to create a machine that could recreate the hand-pulling and layering process required to make su filindeu, but, because of how easily the dough breaks, the pasta company was unsuccessful.