Kneading

Pasta quality depends on how you knead the dough. You can knead it using the rollers of the pasta machine, and you can knead it in the food processor, but to obtain the matchless texture unique to pasta made at home, you must knead it by hand. If the only egg pasta you have had has been the so-called “fresh” kind you buy, or entirely machine-kneaded pasta, whether it is made in a restaurant’s kitchen or even in your own, then you have never felt under your teeth the resilient body, the sinew, of true homemade pasta. Dough needs the warmth of your hands and of the wood surface on which you work it. It responds to those as it cannot to the metallic touch of a steel cylinder or blade. The procedure is not as daunting as it may sound. It takes just 8 minutes and, physically, it can be a deeply satisfying rhythmic exercise. It is good not just for the dough, but for you as well.