68
Basic Pasta Dough
Makes 1 1/2 pounds, serves 6 - 8
INGREDIENTS
3 cups flour
9 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water (more as needed)
Semolina or all-purpose flour for dusting
METHOD
1 In your Food Processor, fitted with the S-Blade, combine the flour,
egg yolks, salt, olive oil, and 3 tablespoons of the water. Process until
the dough begins to hold together, then stop the Processor and
pinch the dough to test it. If it is too dry, add up to one more table-
spoon of water and process until it forms a moist ball. Turn out onto
a lightly floured smooth work surface and knead by hand until a
smooth ball is formed. Loosely wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest at
room temperature for 20 minutes to 1 hour.
2 Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces. Keep the other pieces covered in
plastic while you roll out one piece at a time, by hand with a rolling
pin or through the rollers of a pasta machine, stretching the dough
to the desired thickness.
3 If using a pasta machine, set the rollers at the widest opening.
Flatten the first piece of dough into a thick strip no wider than the
machine, to enable it to pass through the rollers. If necessary, dust
the pasta very lightly with flour. Run the pasta through the machine.
Fold in thirds, crosswise, and run through the machine again. Repeat
this procedure two more times, until the dough is smooth and
somewhat elastic. Set the machine to the next smaller opening and
run the dough through the rollers. Continue rolling and stretching
the dough, using the smaller opening each time, until the next to the
last or the last opening is reached, dusting lightly with flour only as
necessary. (The strip of dough will be long. If you don’t have enough
space on your worktable, halfway through the rolling process cut the
strip of dough in half and continue to work with each piece
separately, keeping the unused dough covered.)
4 Adjust the cutting mechanism to the desired width, cut the noodles,
and allow them to dry before cooking. A convenient way to dry
pasta is to arrange the cut pasta on a pastry tray sprinkled with flour,
preferably semolina flour. As one layer is completed, sprinkle flour
over the noodles, place a piece of parchment paper over them, and
continue layering with noodles and flour. Dry for at least 15 - 20 minutes.
5 Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.
Recipe courtesy Wolfgang Puck
67
Dough and Crust
FG_FoodProc Manual2 7/7/06 3:54 PM Page 69