Fresh pasta is one of the simplest things to make and one of the most frequently botched, usually because it is treated as a recipe with fixed quantities rather than as a ratio that adjusts to conditions.
The Traditional Proportion
Egg pasta is conventionally one egg per hundred grams of flour. That is the entire recipe, and everything else is technique.
The complication is that eggs vary considerably in size. A large egg can weigh sixty-five grams and a medium fifty, which is a thirty per cent difference in the liquid content of the dough.
This is why weighing the eggs rather than counting them produces far more consistent results, and why serious pasta references give egg weights in grams. Scales such as the Escali Scale range make that trivial: crack the eggs into a bowl on the scale and add flour to match.
Working From Egg Weight
The practical method is to weigh the beaten egg and use roughly one and a half times that weight in flour. A hundred grams of egg takes around a hundred and fifty grams of flour.
This automatically adjusts for egg size and produces a consistent dough regardless of what the eggs happened to weigh.
Flour Choice
- Tipo 00: fine, silky, the traditional choice for rolled pasta
- Semola rimacinata: durum wheat, firmer bite, traditional for extruded and southern shapes
- Plain flour: works perfectly well, slightly less refined texture
- Blends of 00 and semola: common, giving both silkiness and bite
Judging the Dough
The dough should be firm, considerably firmer than bread dough, and should not stick to the hands. If it is tacky, add flour a few grams at a time; if it will not come together, add water in tiny amounts rather than another egg.
Fresh pasta dough is meant to feel unpromising at first. It becomes smooth only after kneading, which takes around ten minutes and is the step most people cut short.
Resting
Wrap and rest for at least thirty minutes at room temperature. This allows the gluten to relax and the flour to hydrate fully, which is what makes the dough rollable rather than springing back.
Skipping the rest is the usual reason dough fights the rolling pin or the machine.
Portioning
Weighing portions matters for consistency. A standard main course serving of fresh pasta is roughly a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five grams of dough per person, and dividing by weight rather than by eye means the plates match.
It also matters for filled pasta, where uniform portions of dough and filling produce ravioli that cook at the same rate.
Storage
Fresh pasta keeps a day or two refrigerated, dusted with semola to prevent sticking. It freezes well, laid flat on a tray until solid then bagged, and cooks from frozen with a minute or so added.
Drying it fully at home is possible but requires low humidity and patience, and the result does not keep as reliably as commercially dried pasta.
