Hand Rolled & Hand Cut Pappardelle

Ingredients

Preparation

Put the flour in a food processor work bowl, add the eggs and egg yolk. Pulse the flour and eggs for 15-30 seconds until when you pinch the dough between you thumb and forefinger, it holds together nicely and it’s not too wet. If the mixture is too dry, add water by the tablespoon and pulse in the food processor until you get the correct consistency. If the dough is balling up on the processor blade, it’s too wet. Add more flour and keep pulsing until you get the correct consistency. When you’re satisfied with the dough, dump it out of the work bowl onto a counter or cutting board, gather it up into a ball, and compress it. It should be about the size of a softball. (Resist the urge to start playing catch with it with your kids or your significant other). Wrap it in plastic film or cover with a damp dish towel, leave it on the counter and let it rest for at least an hour.

When you’re “ready to roll”, clear an ample space on your counter or use a large wooden cutting board. See the sequence of photographs below. They’re pretty self explanatory. First, flour your surface. Next, cut off a third of the dough and press it between your hands. Plop it down on your surface, flour it, take your rolling pin and start rolling it out like you would a pie crust. Roll it in all directions. After it starts to expand, pick it up, re-flour the surface and turn the dough over, flour it again and keep rolling. Obviously, it helps it you have a large pin. If you don’t, I urge you to get a thick dowel like what you’d use for a closet pole. It should be at least 24″ and straight. (Bugs rolls his whole dough all at once and uses a 40″ dowel). A small 12″ ro

Once the dough is rolled out as thin as you can possible get it, 3/32 of an inch to 1/16 of inch, take a sharp knife and start cutting the dough sheet into ¾ inch strips. If you have a really sharp pastry crimper you can cut the strips with that to obtain a nice fluted edge to your pappardelle, something Rosaria calls “Margherita” because as a child she remembers having it often with Margherita sauce. It’s a ribbon pasta, consisting of flat strands that have wavy edges. My crimper was too dull, so no Margherita for us. Finally, when you’re done cutting, scoop up the pappardelle on your knife blade, and drape it over the wooden dowels of a pasta drying rack, or on the back of wooden chair, or on a broomstick suspended between two chairs (always my favorite, but Rosaria refuses to have that in our k