I've made fresh egg-based pasta quite a few times already. Usually used Marcella Hazan's recipe.
Now I've wanted to make orecchiette, which is made without egg (i.e. just flour+water(+salt)).
I thought the dough I've made turned out alright. Kneaded for >5 minutes. When I "rolled it out" to those thin sausages you need to make orecchiette, the dough always retraced/stretched back a lot. Trying to form orecchiette was unsuccessful.
I tried to remedy it by adding more flour and kneading more. The dough retracted less, but forming the orecchiette (knife + thumb) wasn't successful either, the dough always seemed too soft and didn't hold its shape.
Maybe it didn't work out because the dough was a bit too wet in the beginning and I started to adjust too late after too much kneading.
Before I give it another try, I'd just like to know whether any of you have made it, whether you've had similar problems, and whether it's easily doable. Some of the vids on youtube from Italian nonnas make it look way too easy.
PS: I was using regular 00 flour.