FRESH EGG PASTA
Glorious golden ribbons of goodness — it’s easier than you think to make ...
There’s a time for dried pasta and there’s a time for fresh. When do you use one or the other? It’s a matter of preference of course, but if you want to employ a simple light gloss of a sauce (using cream, oil, butter or tomatoes) or when serving a stewed ragu or Bolognese, the choice is obvious: fresh egg pasta.
Not only does tender fresh pasta impart delicate textural notes, it cooks faster than the pantry staple dried variety made with semolina flour, water and salt. And, owing to the eggs, it is more flavorful, too.
Fresh pasta also can be cut into different noodle widths (fettuccine, tagliolini, pappardelle) or stuffed with meats and cheeses to create ravioli, tortellini or cannelloni. It’s a versatile product that, once you learn how to make, can elevate your pasta night game.
So how do we get more comfortable with homemade pasta? First, understand that it’s easy to make. Second, the more you work with fresh pasta, the more you’ll understand — as Italians understand instinctively — what sauces marry well with the different noodle types you can churn out with your pasta machine. (The machine rolls dough into sheets and also cuts it at desired widths.)
For our pasta-making primer we turned to an expert, Fernando Rios, chef de cuisine at Weights + Measures, who has his own glass-walled dough room inside the Midtown restaurant where he makes pasta daily. Rios has been making pasta for 15 years. He worked as the executive pasta chef at Da Marco for a dozen years before assuming his current post.
Working with executive chef Richard Kaplan, Rios has perfected a somewhat atypical pasta dough recipe. Many fresh pasta recipes call for water and olive oil as ingredients in the dough mixture, which can be made by hand, with a food processor or a stand mixer until it comes to a ball. The dough is then rested and set through a pasta machine’s rollers starting with the widest settings then cranking it slowly through the narrower settings.
At Weights + Measures, the dough is made only with flour, eggs and a pinch of salt. It requires no kneading. After resting an hour, it’s ready to roll. Rios stresses that the best eggs should be used, and only AA large size. The restaurant works with a local farm to get choice, fresh eggs whose yolks are bright orange.
“These chickens eat well,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan added that home cooks need not fear making and working with fresh pasta dough. “People have a fear of the unknown. They’re afraid they’re not going to make a mistake because cooking is an exact science. It’s not,” he said. “Trust the look and feel of the dough. So what if the first time is not perfect? Do it again. Then do it again. And get the feel of it.”
Rios said to keep extra flour at hand when working with the dough. As you begin thinning the dough, it should feel supple, yet sturdy enough to continue feeding through the machine until it has come to a desired thickness. Like Kaplan, Rios said fresh pasta first-timers need to keep working with the dough and trust their kitchen instincts. Once they’re comfortable with the dough, a whole new world of pasta possibilities is open.
“It’s endless with fresh pasta,” he said.