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Making Fresh Pasta
Appears in
By Fred Plotkin
Published 1989
An honest sfoglina needs very little to make her magic: a good working surface (la spianatoia), a rolling pin (il matterello), a good knife, perhaps a pasta-cutting wheel (la rotellina tagliapasta), flour, fresh eggs, strength, patience, and skill. These are the essentials. Of course, you may also add pasta machines, ravioli trays, fancy racks to dry noodles, and so forth, but you can produce any fresh pasta recipe in this book using only the essentials. Read more about equipment.
In Italy, fresh pasta is made with flour known as “tipo 00.” The wheat used to make this flour is softer (contains less gluten) than that used to produce semolina, the essential flour for the orecchiette of Apulia and the commerically made spaghetti and maccheroni of Naples. Flour in North America is different from tipo 00 in that it contains more gluten, which means that you will have excellent pasta but will have to use a little more effort to roll it out. Do not be daunted. In addition, the eggs used in Italy are often a little smaller than ours.