It’s pretty easy to find a decent commercial fresh fettuccine, but homemade pasta dough is so tender, eggy and flavorful – much more than just a vehicle for sauce — it will take your Fettuccine Alfredo to new heights. Homemade is also the only way to make ravioli with your own imaginative fillings, or other filled pastas such as Cannelloni. The possibilities for creativity are vast. Not to mention it’s fun to make.
To start, make a mound of 00-grade flour and salt, and crack the eggs and egg yolks into a well in the center. Stir the eggs with a fork until they’re blended, then slowly start pulling flour into the center with the fork, and keep stirring until a soft dough forms. Switch to hands, and knead until the mixture forms a soft, smooth, silky dough.
After it rests, roll out the pasta dough using an attachment on your stand mixer (the easiest way), a hand-cranked pasta machine (kudos to you), or a rolling pin (wow, I’m impressed!) Shape it, fill it, or cut it as needed for your recipe.
Use semolina to coat the pasta strands to keep them from sticking.
If you’re not cooking the pasta right away, it can be carefully stored and chilled for a few hours or overnight.
Making this ahead, and what to do with leftovers:
- The dough should be cut or shaped into whatever shape it will be in when cooked — formed into ravioli, or cut into fettuccine ribbons, for example — when the dough is freshly rolled. If you’re not going to cook it right away, store it carefully: toss fettuccine with a little bit of semolina to keep the strands from sticking together, and gather it into loosely curled nests. Squares or rectangles for cannelloni or lasagna should also be dusted lightly with semolina, then laid flat in tiled rows on a baking sheet and covered with plastic wrap. Arrange ravioli or tortellini in a single layer, too. For all, cover tightly and chill for 1 day, 2 at the most.
- To freeze ravioli or tortellini arrange them in a single layer on a small sheet pan and freeze until firm, then transfer them to a freezer-safe zip-lock bag, and freeze for up to 1 month.
- Use this pasta in any recipe calling for fresh egg pasta. Cooking time will depend on the shape and the recipe. For example, fettuccine noodles cook through in 3 to 4 minutes; for Fettuccine Alfredo I boil them for 2 minutes then finish them off with another 1 to 2 minutes in the cream sauce so they absorb the sauce. For Cannelloni, the pasta isn’t boiled at all, it cooks completely after it’s filled and assembled in the casserole.
- Once cooked and sauced, leftovers of this pasta are the same as any other type of pasta: enjoy them within a few days.
Pasta Dough
Ingredients
- 2 cups (9 ounces/254 grams) 00-type flour, plus additional for the board
- ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or 1/4 teaspoon Morton's)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- Semolina, optional
Directions
- Step 1 Mix 2 cups of the 00 flour and the salt in a mound on a large wooden pastry board.
- Step 2 Make a well in the center of the mound and add the eggs and yolks. Beat the eggs with a fork to blend them together, then stir with the fork in gradually expanding circles, slowly bringing flour into the center and incorporating it into the eggs with the fork. Keep stirring and gradually adding flour until the mixture comes together into a soft dough.
- Step 3 Once the dough is too firm to stir with the fork, switch to your hands, gently kneading the dough and adding more of the flour until the dough is firm, smooth and no longer sticky. You may not use all the flour. Whatever flour you don’t use will likely be lumpy with miniscule bits of egg in it — scrape it off the board and discard it. Lightly flour the board with a small amount of fresh flour.
- Step 4 Place the ball of dough on the floured board, cover it loosely with plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel over the top of the plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at room temperature for at least 1 hour and up to several hours.
- Step 5 Divide the dough into 3 pieces. Keeping the other pieces covered with a kitchen towel, work with one piece of the dough: Knead it briefly, then roll it through a pasta machine. Start on the widest setting (setting 1), and roll through several times, folding the dough into thirds (like a letter) between each roll. Move to setting 2 and roll the dough through several times. When the strip of dough starts to get long and thin (thinner than the width of the roller), fold it in thirds (like a letter) and turn it sideways, feeding the longer side in first, to make a thicker sheet. If the dough gets sticky, dust each side with a little bit of flour. Continue rolling and increasing the setting by one notch at a time, until you get to one setting before the final thickness you need for your recipe. (At this stage I usually stop at setting 4 on my Kitchen-Aid mixer attachment.) Lay the dough sheet out on the floured board, cover it with the kitchen towel, and repeat the process with the other 2 pieces of dough.
- Step 6 After you’ve rolled out all 3 pieces, let the sheets of dough rest, covered, for 15 minutes.
- Step 7 After resting, set the roller to the final setting (setting 5) and roll each sheet one more time.
- Step 8 For filled pastas such ravioli or cannelloni, continue right away to shape and fill the pasta. For long cut pasta such as pappardelle or fettuccine, sprinkle a baking sheet with semolina, lay the sheets of pasta out on the sheet, and sprinkle the tops lightly with semolina. Let the pasta sit for 30 minutes before cutting. Once cut into strands, the pasta can be carefully folded or curled into nests, covered, and chilled for several hours or up to overnight before cooking.
- Step 9 Use in any recipe calling for fresh egg pasta. Cooking time depends on the shape of the pasta and the recipe. Fettuccine noodles cook in 3 to 4 minutes.
