Pasta

Instructions

1. Put the flour, eggs, and salt in the mixer bowl with the dough hook.
2. Mix on speed 1 until it starts to combine, then speed 2 until it reaches a crumbly stage.
   • If it looks dry, add water a splash at a time until it pulls clear of the sides.
3. Keep kneading on speed 2 until it comes together into a ball, then another minute. Never above speed 2.
4. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead by hand a couple of minutes, until smooth and elastic.
   • Not elastic enough: back in the mixer on speed 2 for 30 seconds.
5. Shape the dough into a rough rectangle. It won't stay one once it goes through the rollers, but it feeds better if it starts that way.
6. Run it through the pasta roller at the widest setting a couple of times, until it goes through easily.
7. Step the roller down one setting at a time, running the sheet through at least once at each, until it reaches the thickness you want.
   • Dust with flour along the way, so the sheet doesn't stick to the rollers or to itself.
   • Fettuccine: stop around setting 4.
   • Spaghetti: go a little further, so the sheet is no thicker than the cutter's blades are wide.
8. Cut the sheet with the bench scraper into lengths as long as you want the noodles.
9. Flour the surface under the pasta cutter, so the noodles land on flour.
10. Dust each length with flour, then run it through the cutter. The extra flour gives the freshly cut sides something to pick up, so the noodles don't stick together.
11. Gather the noodles into a bundle and set it on a floured surface, or in the steam pan.
12. Boil until tender, 2–4 minutes. Fresh pasta cooks fast.