Making Pasta

Okay, I'm not at all Italian, and I've only done this a handful of times in my life, but I'm here to tell you that you too can make pasta. The big secret – as the Hitchhiker's Guide says – is: DON'T PANIC.


If you panic, you are lost, because the very first thing you must do is build a volcano of eggs right on the counter. One handful of flour plus one egg is what you need per person. (I have small hands so I cheat a little.) Make a cone of flour, hollow it out, and then add the eggs in the crater of your little volcano. If it tries to erupt, dam the lava flow with some of the flour.


Fearlessly beat the eggs into the flour with a fork. Be brave! The eggs must not gain the upper hand! Like bread dough, you will start to notice that this proto-pasta begins to feel springy and alive.

When you have kneaded the dough into submission and it's accepted you as its master, flatten it and start feeding it through the pasta maker. Start on the widest setting. Each time you run it through, dust the pasta ribbon lightly with flour, fold it in half and run it through again. When it's smooth and even, proceed to the next (thinner) setting.

Eventually you will have a long smooth band of very thin pasta. Or else you will have a tough, lacy, unco-operative hank of shreds. If so, go back to the previous setting and see whether you can smooth it out again. I can't emphasize enough the part about not panicking.

If you can grow a third hand for this part, it's a good idea, especially if you plan to take pictures as you go. As you can see from this photo, that's what I did. Roll the thin pasta ribbon through one of the cutting sections of the pasta maker. You'll notice that my nice even ribbon of pasta is trying to tear itself apart at one edge, but we didn't panic, and it all worked out just fine.

I have in the past tried to cut all ten feet or so at once. Today I cut the long ribbon into roughly two-foot lengths and that seemed to work quite well. I store the parts I'm not using on a tea towel, draped over the back of a chair. I don't think you can dust it too often with flour; you don't want it to stick together.

See, even a rank amateur who's never even been to Italy can produce edible pasta. It's just a question of having confidence, even in the face of certain disaster. And when you taste it, you'll wonder why you ever ate that hard dry stuff in the box. (I should have taken a picture of the final meal, with Bolognese sauce and Romano cheese, but we ate it all up.)