Name: Master Recipe for Pasta Dough
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 2 cups (10 ounces/284 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour; 3 large eggs , beaten

Why This Recipe Works

We wanted a fresh pasta recipe that could be used to create a variety of filled pasta shapes or used to make noodles for simple sauces. We found that the food processor kneaded our simple dough, made with just flour and eggs, almost to perfection. Kneading the dough by hand for an additional minute or two made our pasta dough silky and smooth. Running the dough, in pieces, through a manual pasta machine until it was translucent gave us the delicate egg pasta recipe we were after.

Before You Begin

Individual recipes (see linked recipes) give yields in terms of pieces of stuffed pasta, but all three variations produce enough pasta to feed six as a main course and eight or even ten as a first course. To freeze the stuffed pastas, place them on a lightly floured cookie sheet and freeze. Transfer frozen pastas to zipper-lock bags and return to freezer. Make sure to add at least three minutes to the cooking time when cooking frozen pastas.

Instructions

Pulse flour in workbowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade to evenly distribute. Add eggs; process until dough forms a rough ball, about 30 seconds. (If dough resembles small pebbles, add water, 1/2 teaspoon at a time; if dough sticks to side of a workbowl, add flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, and process until dough forms a rough ball.)

Turn dough ball and small bits out onto a dry work surface; knead until dough is smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.

Cut about 1/4 of dough from ball and flatten into a disk; rewrap remaining dough . Run dough through widest setting of a manual pasta machine. Bring ends of dough towards the middle and press down to seal. Run dough, open end first, through the widest setting again. Fold, seal, and roll again. Without folding, run pasta through widest setting about two more times, until dough is smooth. If at any point dough is sticky, lightly dust with flour. Continue to run dough through machine; narrow the setting each time, until you use last setting on machine, and outline of your hand is visible through dough sheet.

Follow instructions below for cutting and shaping each pasta. After one sheet of pasta has been cut, stuffed, and set aside, roll out another quarter of the dough ball, along with trimmings from previous sheet.