Master Recipe – Fresh Pasta

From In the Hands of a Chef: Cooking with Jody Adams by Jody Adams and Ken Rivard (New York: William Morrow).

Makes 1 pound                    TO RETURN TO THE FAZZOLETTI RECIPE CLICK HERE

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
3 extra-large eggs

1. Put the flour in the bowl of a food processor. Beat the eggs in a bowl with a fork. With the food processor running, add the beaten eggs in a steady stream. Process until the dough comes together and is smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes. If the dough seems sticky, add a little more flour. Put the ball of dough in a bowl and cover with plastic. Let rest for 20 minutes.

2. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Cover 5 of the pieces with plastic. Flatten the remaining piece of dough slightly with your hand, dust it with flour, and crank it through a manual pasta machine with rollers set to their maximum distance apart, the #1 setting. Fold the dough in thirds as though you were folding a business letter and run it through the machine again, feeding the narrow side into the rollers. Repeat the process of folding and rolling 4 or 5 more times. This process kneads the dough and prepares it for the next step of thinning it. Don’t hesitate to sprinkle the dough with flour as necessary as you continue it through the machine; you don’t want it to stick to the rollers.

3. Gradually roll the dough to the desired thinness, narrowing the distance between the rollers with each pass of the dough. If the dough tears, just patch it together and roll it through the same setting again, a little more slowly this time. If the dough sticks to the rollers, sprinkle it with flour. (You will soon get the feel for the right speed and the proper level of moisture to keep the dough rolling efficiently.) After you’ve rolled the dough through the #6 setting, it should be thin enough to cut into any string pasta. For ravioli, the dough should be rolled slightly thinner. If you have an older machine there may be only one more setting; otherwise, the machine may go up to #9. For ravioli, roll the dough through #7 if that’s your highest setting, or through #8. (I never use #9 – the dough becomes too delicate to handle easily.)

Using a Half-Recipe of Fresh Pasta

Once in a while I only need one ½ pound of fresh pasta dough (a half-recipe). If I know I’ll use the remainder within a few days, I simply make the full pound of dough and roll out half for whatever I’m making, saving the rest as a tightly wrapped ball in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to 4 days; after that, the gluten starts to break down. If I only want to make ½ pasta, I follow the recipe, using 1 cup flour, 1 extra-large egg, 1 extra-large egg yolk, and 1 tablespoon water; I divide the dough into 3 balls instead of 6. A third alternative is simply to buy ½ pound of pasta dough and roll it out yourself. The pasta store near me, in addition to a variety of noodles and ravioli, sells fresh dough, uncut sheets, and even ravioli molds and pastry wheels.

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