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Assume, as an example, that the recipe requires tortelloni with 2-inch wide sides. Cut the dough into a long rectangle 4 inches broad. Put dots of stuffing down 2 inches apart. The distance between the dots must always be the same as the width of the dumpling, in this case 2 inches. The dotted row of stuffing runs parallel to the edges of the rectangle and is set back 1 inch—half the width of the dumpling—from one edge. (This is much easier to do than it is to try to visualize. Try it first with paper cut to size, and you’ll see.)

Once the rectangle is dotted with stuffing, bring the edge farther from the row of dots over it and join it to the other edge, thus creating a long tube that encloses the stuffing. Use a fluted pastry wheel to trim the joined edges and both ends of the tube, to seal it all around. With the same wheel, cut across the tube between every mound of stuffing, separating it into squares.

Spread the squares out on clean, dry, cloth towels, making sure they do not touch while the dough is still soft. If they do they will stick to one another and tear when you try to pull them apart. If you are not cooking them right away, turn the squares over from time to time while they are drying.

• Garganelli Garganelli, a hand-turned, grooved tubular pasta, is a specialty of Imola and other towns in Romagna. Its floppy shape, somewhat reminiscent of factory-made penne, and its texture, which is that of homemade pasta, combine to offer unique and delicious sensations when matched with a congenial sauce. Although it is not stuffed, garganelli must be made with soft, fresh dough, like the tortellini and tortelloni above.

In Romagna, garganelli is made with the help of a small, loom-like tool called pettine, or comb. As a substitute, you can use a clean, new hair comb with teeth at least 1½ inches long. An Afro comb would do the job. You also need a small dowel or a smooth, perfectly round pencil ¼ inch in diameter and 6 to 7 inches long.

Cut soft, fresh dough into 1½-inch squares. Lay the comb flat on the counter, its teeth pointing away from you. Lay a pasta square diagonally on the comb so that one corner points toward you, another toward the tips of the comb’s teeth. Place the dowel or pencil on the square and parallel to the comb. Curl the corner of the square facing you around the dowel and, with gentle downward pressure, push the dowel away from you and off the comb. Tip the dowel on its end and a small, ridged tube of pasta will slide off. Spread the garganelli on a clean, dry, cloth towel, making sure they do not touch each other. Garganelli cannot be made long in advance and dried like other pasta because they will crack while cooking. They are best cooked immediately, but if you cannot do that, plunge them in boiling water for a few seconds, drain immediately, toss with olive oil, and spread on a tray to cool.

• Stricchetti This is the shape known as “bow ties” in English or farfalline in standard Italian; stricchetti is in the dialect of Romagna, where the shape probably originated. It is the easiest of all pasta shapes to form by hand. Cut soft, freshly made pasta dough into rectangles 1 by 1½ inches. Pinch each rectangle at the middle of its long sides, bringing the sides together, and squeezing them fast. There is also a slightly more complicated method that has the advantage of producing a smaller mound in the center. Place your thumb in the middle of the rectangle, and fold the center of one of the long sides toward it; replace the thumb with the tip of your index finger, and with your thumb, bring the center of the other side of the rectangle to meet it. Squeeze tightly to fasten the fold.

Drying stuffed and shaped pasta Tortellini, ravioli, and the other stuffed or shaped pasta described above can be stored for at least a week once fully dry and leather hard. Allow the pasta to dry out for 24 hours, turning it from time to time, before putting it away. It can be stored in a cupboard,