Basic Pasta Dough

Ellie (3 months) looking on as Mom keeps rolling...rolling...rolling.

And so the weekend, along with The Great Pasta Experiment of 2004 has come and gone. After the initial mishap with the flour wall breaching and the eggs slithering their way onto the floor, and my near breakdown over the mess, the rest of the weekends pasta project went relatively trouble and accident free. That's not to imply in any way that I think I'm an expert on pasta now, (heh, you should have seen how my ravioli went bust after the noodles seperated in the boiling water and all the filling spilled out) actually I'm pretty far from that, but I did manage to settle on a dough recipe that I liked. It's a basic recipe for pasta dough from Simple Italian Food by Mario Batali with a few little tweaks by me.

One of the things I noticed when I began my quest for a basic dough recipe were all the different variations of dough recipes that are out there. Some people add salt, others don't, some folks use 4 eggs other folks use less eggs, some add oil, some don't add oil, some say to add an extra yolk, others say leave it out. That can be confusing enough without the added debate over the type of flour one should use. According to Batali:

" Flours are distinguished by the types of wheat they are derived from. For Italian cooks, the main distinction is between hard and soft wheat. As its name implies, soft wheat flour makes a softer final product because it is high in starch, yet low in protein and gluten. So while soft flour produces soft and light cakes, it does not have the glutinous elasticity necessary to harness yeast's expanding power, so essential to bread making. Soft wheat flour, does however, produce the tender pasta at the heart of Emilia-Romagna's cuisine. Hard wheat flour, conversely, is lower in starch and higher in protein and gluten, producing firm and resilient pasta and superior bread. Durum wheat is high in gluten and is usually ground into semolina, a slightly coarser flour used in pasta production, particularly in the South of Italy. When purchasing flour, look at the nutrition panel for the protein content, which is listed in grams per pound. For fresh pasta, choose flour with 8 to 11 grams of protein and for breads; look for 13 to 15 grams. In Italy double zero (00) is the pasta maker's choice: the 00 refers to it’s sift fineness. Since it's hard to come by here, I like to blend 80 percent cake flour and 20 percent all-purpose flour, but if you want to buy only one type of flour for making fresh pasta which isn't such a tragedy, buy cake flour. Be sure to avoid "self-rising" cake flour.

Now I was very lucky to find "00" flour in my neighborhood, however, I know, and you know, and the old master himself James Beard knew, that this is not such an easy thing to come by for many folks, especially those living outside major metropolitan areas, so in his book, Beard on Pasta, James Beard uses, and instructs the home cook to use all-purpose flour with his recipes. Both James Beard and Mario Batali instruct the home cook not to fret over which flour to use, too much. They both agree that the end result is still worth it, making your own fresh pasta from scratch rocks no matter what flour you use.

After looking at numerous recipes I finally chose Batali's because I liked the way it read on the page, 4 eggs, no salt, some olive oil and the sexy flour, what could be bad about it? My first dough was a little on the dry side, and so when mixing up the second batch I added an extra yolk and an additional teaspoon of olive oil and that made all the difference. The result was a silky smooth dough that was lovely to work with and tasted pretty darn good.

Adapted from Simple Italian Food by Mario Batali (notes in parenthesis are mine)

Basic Pasta Dough

makes 1 pound

"This yields enough fresh pasta to serve four as a first course pasta dish or two as a main course. Divided into 4 portions and rolled to the thinnest setting on a pasta machine, it can be used to make ravioli and other stuffed pastas. Rolled slightly thicker the sheets can be cut into varying widths, as follows: Tagliolini: 1/4 inch, Fettucine: 1/2 inch, Tagliatelle: 3/4 inch, Pappardelle: 1 1/2 inches"

• 3 1/2 to 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 4 extra large eggs
• 1 extra large egg yolk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

Mound 3 1/2 cups of the flour in the center of a large wooden cutting board. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs and olive oil. (Trust me on this one, use a large bowl and make the well in there) Using a fork, beat together the eggs and oil and begin to incorporate the flour starting with the inner rim of the well.

As you expand the well, keep pushing the flour up from the base of the mound to retain the well shape. Do not worry that this initial phase looks messy. The dough will come together when half the flour is incorporated.

Start out by kneading the dough with both hands, using the palms of your hands. (you can probably knead this in a food processor but I prefer doing it by hand. Kneading dough by hand, is a satisfying taskthat I really enjoy doing) Once you have a cohesive e mass, remove the dough from the board and scrape up and discard any leftover crusty bits. Lightly re-flour the board and continue kneading for 6 more minutes. The dough should be elastic and a little sticky. Wrap the dough in plastic, and allow it to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Roll or shape as desired.

Note: Do not skip the kneading or resting portions for the dough. They are essential for light pasta.

Written by Deb on April 26, 2004 01:55 AM