Homemade Pasta

Place the flour on a clean kitchen counter and use your fist to form a well. Be sure to keep the walls of the well high enough and thick enough to hold the eggs as you start to beat them.

Crack the eggs into the well and beat the eggs until they are well incorporated (smooth and a consistent yellow color throughout).

With your fingertips, start incorporating flour from the outer part of the well, taking care to not break the wall of the well.

As the egg and flour mixture begins to thicken, incorporate more and more of the flour until you are able to close the well in upon itself without risking the egg mixture breaking free and running out onto the counter.

Begin kneading the dough until it is consistent and not too sticky. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.

Put some bench flour on a clean countertop, and unwrap the dough, cutting it into four equal pieces.

One at a time, run each piece of dough through a pasta maker starting at the thickest setting and working your way to the thinnest setting. Each time you run it through, make sure to sprinkle some flour on both sides to prevent it from sticking to the pasta maker.

Now you have sheets of pasta that you can use to make whatever shape of pasta you want to make. The photos below show making a ricotta-filled ravioli that we learned in the Côte d'Azure. The filling is ricotta, Parmigiano Reggiano, salt, pepper, and lemon zest.

The above recipe uses 2 eggs and 200 grams of '00' flour. We find that 2 eggs make enough pasta to serve 4 people (depending on what type of pasta you are making and portion size), and what else you are serving. The recipe is linear, meaning add 100 grams of flour for each egg you use. Also, note that we propose using '00' flour. This was a recent discovery based on our trip to Italy and the Côte d'Azure, where we took a class with an excellent pasta chef from Torino, Italy. Our recommended flour is Molino Pasini Pasta D'Oro if you are in Italy. In the U.S. you can buy Molino Pasini Pasta Fresca on Amazon.