Rolling Pasta Out by Hand

Producing egg pasta that is not just homemade, but handmade, is a craft. I have seen some of my students master it right away. Others take a little longer. Some never get it at all. Why do it? Because if you succeed, you will possess one of the most precious skills that a cook can command, and from your hands will come a product without compare.

When you roll out egg pasta by hand, you are stretching the dough, with a rapid succession of motions, over the length of the long pin. In the machine method, the dough is compressed between two cylinders. There is a difference in color—the color of hand-stretched pasta is considerably deeper than the color of dough squeezed out by machine—and a more important difference in structure.