Fresh Egg Pasta

Name: Fresh Egg Pasta
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 300 g (2⅓ cups) '00' flour or all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting; 3 eggs, large, about 165 g (6 oz) without shells; 1 egg yolk, large; fine semolina, for dusting the cut pasta (or more flour)

One dough for tagliatelle, pappardelle, lasagne and ravioli

Makes: about 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) fresh pasta
Hands-on: 45 min
Total: 1 h 15 min
Level: Some skill

Fresh egg pasta is flour and eggs and some patience. This dough is a little firmer than most, which makes it easier to roll by hand or machine and gives tender, springy noodles that hold sauce well.

Ingredients

300 g'00' flour or all-purpose flour (2⅓ cups)plus extra for dusting
3eggslarge, about 165 g (6 oz) without shells
1egg yolklarge
fine semolinafor dusting the cut pasta (or more flour)

Diet: Vegetarian, Dairy-free
Allergens: gluten, egg
Origin: Italy (Emilia-Romagna)

Method

Tip the flour onto a clean work surface or into a wide bowl and make a deep well in the middle. Add the eggs and yolk.
Beat the eggs with a fork, slowly drawing in flour from the inside walls of the well, until you have a thick paste. Then push in the rest of the flour with your hands or a bench scraper.
Knead firmly, pushing away with the heel of your hand and folding back, until the dough is smooth, silky and springs back slowly when pressed, 8–10 minutes. If it is too dry to come together, wet your hands; if it is sticky, dust with flour. 10 min
Wrap tightly and rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. 30 min
Cut the dough in 4 pieces; keep the others wrapped. Flatten one piece and roll it through a pasta machine on the widest setting. Fold in thirds and roll again; repeat twice to smooth it out.
Roll through progressively thinner settings, once each, until you can just see the shadow of your hand through the sheet: usually the second-to-last setting for tagliatelle, the thinnest for ravioli. By hand, roll with a long pin from the center outwards, turning often, to about 1 mm.
Let the sheets dry on a floured surface for 5–10 minutes until they feel leathery but not brittle, then dust with semolina, roll loosely and cut: 6 mm (¼ in) for tagliatelle, 2.5 cm (1 in) for pappardelle. Shake out the strands and toss with semolina. 10 min
Cook in well-salted boiling water (10 g salt per liter) for 1½–3 minutes, until tender with a slight bite. 3 min

Why it works

Kneading lines up the wheat proteins into gluten, which gives fresh pasta its spring. Resting relaxes that gluten so the dough rolls thin without shrinking back, and lets the flour fully absorb the egg. The extra yolk adds fat that makes the pasta tender and golden.

Common mistakes

Skipping the rest: the dough fights you and tears.
Adding too much flour while rolling: it makes the pasta dry and dusty. Use semolina on the cut strands instead.
Overcooking: fresh pasta cooks in minutes. Taste early.

Variations

Spinach pasta: Blend 100 g cooked, very well squeezed spinach with the eggs and add 30–50 g extra flour as needed.
Ravioli: Roll sheets to the thinnest setting, pipe small mounds of filling (ricotta, Parmigiano, lemon zest, nutmeg) 4 cm apart, cover with a second sheet, press out air, cut and seal.

Make ahead and storage

Wrapped dough keeps 1 day in the fridge. Cut nests can dry on a tray for 1–2 hours and be cooked the same day, or frozen on the tray, then bagged, for 1 month; cook from frozen, adding 1 minute.

Notes

Without a pasta machine, roll by hand with a long rolling pin; it takes more effort but works. 00 flour gives a silkier result; all-purpose gives a slightly chewier one.