Greg's Favourite Pasta

The flour blend in this homemade pasta dough is what makes it sing. All-purpose alone produces tender but flabby noodles; pure semolina makes them tough and dry. The 60/40 mix here splits the difference: enough semolina for the signature golden color and pleasant chew, enough soft flour for workable elasticity at the rolling stage.

Three whole eggs at this flour ratio is a richer dough than the standard one-egg-per-cup rule, and the recipe itself notes that’s the point. More yolk means more golden color, more flavor, and a silkier mouthfeel against any sauce you serve with it.

The well-and-fork method on the board is the classic Italian technique. It looks intimidating but the wall of flour controls the liquid spill while you gradually pull dry into wet. The dough comes together drier than you expect, which is correct; this is meant to be a stiff, almost reluctant dough.

The 10-minute rest is non-skippable. It lets the gluten relax so the dough rolls thin without snapping back. Skip it and you’ll fight the pasta machine the whole way.

Pro Tips

• The 30-minute air-dry between rolling and cutting is the secret to clean cuts. Slightly tacky pasta sticks in the cutter; properly air-dried sheets feed through cleanly.
• Fresh pasta cooks in 2 to 4 minutes, not 8 to 10 like dried. Taste a strand at the 2-minute mark and pull when it’s just past raw at the center.
• Salt the cooking water generously. Pasta gets no other seasoning while cooking; bland water means bland pasta.
• Freeze in single-layer portions on a sheet pan, then bag once solid. This prevents the strands from welding together into one frozen brick.

Variations

• Add a tablespoon of tomato paste to the wet ingredients for a red-tinted pasta dough.
• Knead in a handful of finely chopped fresh spinach (squeezed bone-dry first) for green pasta.
• Use 00 flour in place of all-purpose for a silkier, more refined Italian-style dough.