The Perfect Master Pasta Dough

The Greek chef behind the Melbourne pasta bar with a cult following, Tipo 00, Andreas Papadakis has released a book of the same name, and in the first of several extracts shared with Viva, he explains the secrets to mastering pasta dough.

If using an electric mixer, place both flours and the salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and whole egg. (I find it easiest to weigh the egg yolks in a clean bowl first and then add the whole eggs to the same bowl up to the total amount of eggs, which is 255g (9 oz) for this recipe. The total amount of egg is the important part.) Mix on slow speed for 8–10 minutes, until you start seeing large crumbs forming and the dough starts coming together. Transfer the dough to a clean benchtop and knead by hand until it comes together. Don’t expect it to be really smooth, as this is a drier dough – it will come together more and get smoother in the rolling process.

To make the dough by hand, combine both flours and the salt in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and whole egg. Mix with a fork until just combined, then transfer to a clean benchtop and knead by hand for 6–8 minutes until the dough comes together.

If the dough seems too dry and won’t come together, you can spray it a couple of times with your spray bottle of water – just be careful not to overdo it and make the dough too wet, since it will become more hydrated and softer as it rests.

I like to shape the dough into a roughly rectangular block, rather than a ball, as I find it easier to feed through the pasta machine later. Wrap your dough really well in plastic film, making it as airtight as possible (at the restaurant we use a vacuum sealer).

If you are planning to make your pasta straight away, let the dough rest for at least an hour at room temperature – but ideally refrigerate it overnight, then take it out a couple of hours before rolling and cutting to let it come back to room temperature.

To make the rolling more manageable, it’s best to work with a relatively small amount of dough, so divide it in two before you start. (If you are not using all the dough at once, you can refrigerate the rest of it, tightly wrapped, for up to three days.)

Rolling and folding the dough

Cutting and shaping the dough

Tipo 00: The Pasta Cookbook by Andreas Papadakis, $55, published by Murdoch Books

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