There’s a science to rolling out fresh pasta | Kitchen aide
Tearing is a common problem with pasta dough say our experts. Culprits include the wrong type of flour, cold dough – or it could even
Tearing is a common problem with pasta dough say our experts. Culprits include the wrong type of flour, cold dough – or it could even boil down to the size of your egg When making fresh pasta, why does the dough sometimes tear when rolling, and other times not? Thomas, by email “I’m sorry to hear your pasta is rippy,” sympathises Jacob Kenedy, chef-patron of Bocca di Lupo in London, who is teaming up with fellow chef Merlin Labron-Johnson to celebrate the Italian midsummer holiday ferragosto with two feasts in Somerset next month.
Assuming Thomas is rolling an egg pasta dough in a pasta machine, there are a number of possible explanations. First, Kenedy says, he might be using the wrong type of flour (“use 00 flour”), the dough might be too cold (“use it at room temperature”) or too dry (“it should be supple, like Play-Doh”). Naz Hassan, head chef of Ornella and Lupa, both in London, adds that the latter might be down to the size of the egg(s) Thomas is using: “One egg to 100g of 00 flour is the basic pasta dough recipe, but that will vary depending on the size of your egg,” he says.
Of course, some people prefer to use just the yolk, and if that applies to Thomas, Hassan suggests thinking about maybe adding the egg white, too: “It has the structure that allows pasta to have the stretchiness it deserves.” But, in true Goldilocks style, a dough that is too wet might also spell trouble, Kenedy says: “I like my pasta dough wet enough to roll by hand – it gives a more elastic mouthfeel – which means, if I roll it in a machine, it sticks slightly to the roller and may rip.” The fix?
Laminate the dough thoroughly and perhaps use “the finest dusting” of flour until the dough passes smoothly through the pasta machine. “Then make sure to roll that flour in, so the outside of the pasta isn’t dusty,” Kenedy adds. Continue reading...
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