Rav Dough
Makes 19.6 ounces of dough
2 well-packed cups 00 flour, unsifted
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup whole eggs (about 2 large)
1/3 cup egg yolks (5 to 6 yolks)
11/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1. Place the flour on a dry, clean work surface, forming a mound about 8 to 10 inches in diameter at its base. Sprinkle the salt in the middle. Using the bottom of a measuring cup, create a well 4 to 5 inches wide, leaving 1/2 inch of flour at the bottom.
2. Slowly and carefully add eggs, yolks and oil into the well, treating the flour as a bowl. Using a fork, gently beat eggs without touching the flour “walls” or scraping through the bottom. Still stirring, slowly incorporate flour “walls” into the egg mixture, gradually working your way toward the outer edges but disturbing the base as little as possible. Once the dough starts to take on a thickened, pastelike quality (a slurry), slowly incorporate the flour from the bottom.
3. When the slurry starts to move as a solid mass, slide a spatula under dough; flip it and turn it onto itself to clear any wet dough from the work surface. With your hands, start folding and forming the dough into a single mass. Use a spray bottle to generously and constantly spritz the dough with water to help glue any loose flour to the dry dough ball. When dough forms a stiff, solid mass, scrape away any dried flour from the work surface.
4. Knead the dough: Drive the heel of your dominant hand into the dough. Push down and release, then use your other hand to pick up and rotate the dough on itself 45 degrees. Repeat for 10 to 15 minutes. This is how Italian grandmas get their fat wrists. When the dough is ready, it will be firm but bouncy to the touch and have a smooth, silky surface, almost like Play-Doh. Tightly wrap the dough in plastic wrap.
5. If you plan to use the dough immediately, let it rest at room temperature, wrapped in plastic, for at least 30 minutes. (If resting for more than 6 hours, refrigerate it. Bring to room temperature before rolling. It’s best to use fresh dough within 24 hours.)
6. Rolling out pasta by machine — whether it’s a hand-crank model or an electric one — should be a delicate, almost Zen-like art. Slice off a section of dough, immediately rewrapping the unused portion in plastic wrap. Place dough on work surface and, with a rolling pin, flatten it enough to fit the widest setting of the machine. Roll dough through that setting, guiding it quickly through the slot once. Decrease thickness setting by one and repeat. Decrease and roll once more. It should have doubled in length.
7. Measure the width of your pasta machine’s slot, minus the thickness of two fingers. Make a gentle indentation at the end of the pasta sheet to represent that length. Make that mark the crease and fold the pasta over. Repeat for the rest of the pasta sheet, keeping that same initial measurement. For best results, you want a minimum of four layers. Use a rolling pin to roll it flat enough to fit in the machine. Put the dough back in the machine but with a 90 degree turn, so what was the “bottom” edge of the pasta is now going through the machine first.
8. This time around, roll out the dough two to three times on each setting at a steady, smooth pace, keeping the dough taut and flat. Move on to the next level when the dough slips through without any trouble.
— Thomas McNaughton, “Flour + Water” (Ten Speed Press, $35, 288 pages)
