Karpathos hand-rolled pasta dressed with deeply caramelized onion and crumbled sour goat cheese — three centuries of poverty turned into a wedding dish.
Makarounes belong to the small Dodecanese island of Karpathos, particularly the mountain village of Olympos, where they remain a wedding dish and Sunday staple. The pasta is hand-rolled into short rope shapes using only flour, water, and salt. The defining touch is the toppings: olive oil fried with sliced onion until caramel-dark, then crumbled sour goat cheese (sitaka) blanketing the top.
Hand-rolled short pasta tossed with onions caramelized in sheep's butter (or olive oil), blanketed with soft, slightly soured sitaka cheese. The pasta has finger-pressed dimples that catch the butter — this is hand-craft showing in every bite.
Karpathos's makarounes are made by pinching small dough pieces and dragging them on a board — the imprint creates a textured surface that holds 3× more sauce than smooth machine-extruded pasta. Sitaka's soured-cheese tang cuts the onion sweetness.
Variations
Karpathos uses caramelized onions and mizithra; Crete uses anthotyro and skips the deep onion caramel; Rhodes adds a dusting of cinnamon — Aegean pasta with island variations.
On the Palate
Where Makarounes sits in the Greek flavor cloud
Ingredients
How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour 15 min
- 130 min
Mix 300g wheat flour with 1 tsp salt and enough warm water (~150ml) to form a stiff, smooth dough. Knead 8 minutes; rest covered 30 minutes.
- 25 min
Pinch off marble-sized pieces. Roll each into a thin rope about 5cm long, then press gently with three fingertips to make a slight curve — the classic Karpathos shape.
Watch outPress each little rope with three fingertips so it keeps a rough, dented curve — that texture is what grabs three times the sauce a smooth noodle would.
- 38 min
Cover the formed pasta with a cloth while you work. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil.
- 48 min
While the water heats, slice 2 large onions thin and fry slowly in olive oil over medium-low heat until deeply caramel-dark and almost crispy (25-30 minutes). Salt at the end.
Watch outCook the onions low and patient until they go deep caramel-brown and nearly crisp — this dark sweetness is the sauce; take them off pale and the dish falls flat.
- 58 min
Boil the pasta for 4-5 minutes until just tender. Drain, reserving a splash of cooking water.
Watch outPull the pasta while it's just tender with a little chew — it keeps softening off the heat, and mushy makarounes lose the point of the shape.
- 62 min
Mound pasta into bowls, spoon over the caramelized onion and its dark oil, top generously with crumbled goat cheese, and serve immediately.
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