Pasta al Mattarello

I find rolling out a big sheet of pasta using a long rolling pin to be a very satisfying and therapeutic exercise. It is easier than it looks. I was worried that rolling up the dough onto the rolling pin to move it around would cause it to stick and make a mess, but it simply does not happen. It is not a big deal at all. I find myself doing this way more and more and may end up eventually abandoning the hand-cranked machine.

I learned a good trick from pro pasta guru Evan Funke, which is to use some number of Post-It notes to determine the final thickness. For example, for delicate pastas such as tortellini and tortelloni, 9 Post-Its thick (0.45 mm) is a good number.

Pasta all’Uovo (semola OR 00 recipe), prepared until it tells you to return here

1. Let your dough get to room temperature.

2. Put a little base flour on top and under the dough.

3. Flatten the dough with your hands into a disk.

4. Rotate it in your hands until you have a disk that is as round as possible. Doing this up front will help keep it round as you roll it out.

5. Proceed to roll it out a little at a time. Rotate 30-90 degrees at a time. Try to keep it round the whole time. Move your hands in and out along the rolling pin to ensure pressure is applied everywhere on the dough.

6. Here's the fun part. At some point, the sheet will get big enough that you need to roll it up onto the rolling pin, then rotate it 90 degrees and unroll it back onto the counter. If it's starting to stick to the counter, sprinkle minimum base flour first. In general, though, we want to avoid adding flour because it will dry out the dough. Once in a while, also unroll it upside-down so that you effectively flip the sheet over. For the last time you do this flip, make sure the side with least flour is on top (if you are making stuffed pastas).

7. You can further speed up the process by letting about half the dough hang over the edge of the counter, thus allowing gravity to help you spread it. But this is an optional thing to do.

8. To avoid having to rotate the dough by rolling it up on the rolling pin, you can also rotate yourself and change the direction of the rollling. That depends on your work surface situation.

9. Once you get the dough to the desired thickness (e.g., 9 Post-It notes for delicate pastas), then make sure the side with the least flour is on top.

10. If you are cutting noodles, fold up the dough gently on each side until the two sides meet in the middle (see photo below). You want the total width to be less than the length of your knife. Once you cut the noodles, you can take a long, thin knife and slide it under the center, then lift up and you'll have your noodles on your knife ready to transfer to a pasta rack. Refer to Pasta Tagliata a Mano for the recommended widths of various noodles.

11. If you are instead making a stuffed pasta such as Tortelloni, cut one wide strip of dough at time and cover the remaining sheet with plastic to keep it from drying out (see photo below).