Fresh Pasta Therapy
Making it is (almost) as rewarding as eating it
Issue 56: From Dana
I have the nicest neighbors, and yesterday one of them left some eggs from his super productive chicken coop on my front porch. His happy hens roam free, eating a foraged diet that gives their yolks a bright yellow hue and a flavor that makes you rethink how good something as simple as an egg can be. So, I knew what I had to do: make fresh pasta.
It was perfect timing, since my son is coming home from college for a visit and fresh pasta is one of his favorite foods. I also hadn’t made it in a while, and I find the process so grounding and meditative. I’ve been busy and stressed these past few weeks, and I knew a pasta-making sesh would do me some good.
So this morning I got to work, mixing the yolks with the flour the way Marcella Hazan showed me how when I was first starting to find my way in the kitchen and her books were my bibles. I made a mountain of flour on the countertop–no measuring or weighing, just what felt right for a serving of three–and carved a well, like a crater in a volcano, with my fingers.
I cracked two eggs into the center and started beating them with a fork until they were evenly blended, then added two more and worked them in. I gradually edged the fork around the sides, pulling flour into the egg, bit by bit, and with my other hand held the pile together so the egg wouldn’t find a way to escape. It’s a move that requires your full attention and eventually covers your fingers in gluey dough: at this stage, it doesn’t seem possible that this sticky mess is going to come together into a smooth ball. But it always does.
Our pasta making classes are some of our most popular Dynamite lessons, for good reason. They require not much more than flour and eggs, and that tactile maneuvering that turns them into beautiful noodles is a reminder of how transformative cooking can be and what a physical role we play in the process. It’s downright empowering for kids, or anyone, really, to experience this and even though I’ve done it hundreds of times, it’s still awe-inspiring.
I usually use a hand crank pasta machine to roll out the dough, inching the dial down for thinner and thinner sheets, and then to cut the strands into tagliatelle. In class we usually do it the old school Nonna-way with a rolling pin, then coil the sheet of dough jelly-roll style and cut it into whatever width feels best with the sauce. Some of you may remember our former long-time instructor Sara who hails from Emilia-Romagna, a region of Italy that’s famed for its pasta: she used to say in her classes that her Nonna taught her to roll the dough thin enough so you could hold it up to the window and see the Duomo in the distance.
I rarely go that thin, because I like a little bite to my pasta, and if you’re serving it with heavy sauces, a thicker noodle is the way to go. I store the noodles in nests on a sheet pan, tossed with lots of flour, and let them sit out for a few hours before moving them in the fridge.
When Jack gets home, I’ll boil the noodles until they float to the top of the pot and drain them into a pan with the simplest ever and most satisfying sauce: brown butter flavored with frizzled sage. Sure, I could make a ragu or another fall-centric sauce like sausage with roasted squash or wild mushrooms with cream. But for pasta made with eggs this good, you don’t need to gild the lily any more than it’s already gilded.
Fresh Pasta
Makes about 16 ounces
2 cups all-purpose flour (or a gluten-free substitute, such as Bob’s Red Mill 1:1), plus more for dusting
4 large eggs
Kosher salt, for the water
Your favorite sauce, for serving
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
Rolling pin or glass bottle with straight sides
Pasta machine (optional)
1. Mound the flour into a pile on a clean work surface. Use your fingers to make a deep well in the center of the flour. Crack one of the eggs into the well and, using a fork, gently whisk the egg, pulling in bits of flour as you go. Once there is more room in the well, add the second egg and continue to whisk and gradually pull in more flour. Repeat with the remaining 2 eggs.
2. Once it becomes difficult to mix with the fork, use your hands to knead the dough, pushing and pressing, until the mixture forms a cohesive ball and is no longer sticky. Wrap the dough tightly with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water (it should taste like the ocean) to a boil over high heat. (If it comes to a boil before you are ready to cook the pasta, lower the heat.)
4. Unwrap the dough and cut it into 4 equal portions. Scatter a few pinches of flour evenly over your work surface until it looks like it’s lightly dusted with snow. Place a portion of the dough on the work surface and rewrap the remaining portions.
5. Using a rolling pin or a glass bottle, roll it out into a long sheet of pasta, ideally 8 inches wide by 18 inches long and 1 millimeter thick. (You should almost be able to see through it, but not quite.)
6. Alternatively, if you have a pasta machine, turn the dial to the widest setting and use the crank to roll the pasta through it twice. Then turn the dial down 2 sizes and repeat. Keep doing this, going down in size, until the pasta is very thin (about 1 millimeter thick).
7. From the short end, roll the sheet of pasta into a log, dusting it with flour as needed to prevent the sides from sticking together, and slice it into noodles of your desired width. Flour another work surface and place the noodles on it. Coil them into little nests and dust them lightly with flour until you’re ready to cook them; they’ll keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Repeat with the remaining portions of dough.
8. When you’re ready to cook, turn the heat to high and let the water come back to a full, roiling boil, if necessary. Cook the noodles, a batch or two at a time, for 2 to 3 minutes, until they float to the top. Drain, reserving a cup of the cooking water, and toss the pasta in a hot pan with your favorite sauce (use a little of the reserved water, if necessary, to thin it out). Serve immediately.