Pasta for two, or three
yield ~ a bit over 8 ounces
Modified from Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio”.
I like a very egg yolk-heavy pasta. It’s has a beautiful color, it’s silky, it’s heaven. It’s easy.
2 egg yolks
1 whole large egg
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon water
1 cup + one tablespoon of all purpose flour, plus extra if needed.
. In a medium bowl add the yolks, the egg, the water and the oil. Beat with a fork until well combined.
. Pour all of the flour into the bowl and immediately whisk with the fork. It will come together very quickly. Remove the fork and knead for a minute or two right in the bowl. Do not stop kneading – the pasta will dry quickly. Take the dough from bowl onto a clean surface and continue kneading for another minute. If the dough at this point is still sticky at all add about a generous tablespoon of flour and knead for another minute, if still sticky after that add some more flour. And so on. You may have to add three or more tablespoons of flour. The dough should be silky smooth and not tacky whatsoever. Knead for a total of at least ten minutes.
. Double wrap in plastic, leave at room temperature for 30 min to an hour.
. Unwrap and roll-out. Roll-out on a well-floured surface. Cut in any shape you like. Cook in heavily salted water for about 2 to 3 minutes.
note, if you can get the very finely milled flour, “00” (dopio zero) from Italian flour company Caputo, all the better!
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Some numbers behind this. And using a scale.
An average large egg weighs 2 ounces. The yolk weighs about 0.6 ounces and the white weighs about 1.4 ounces.
. For each egg yolk, by weight, use a ratio of 1.15x flour.
. For each whole egg, by weight, use a ratio of 1.65x flour.
So for the above amount of pasta…
… the two egg yolks weigh about 1.2 ounces (2 x 0.6). Multiply that 1.2 ounces by the factor of 1.15 = just under 1.4 ounces of flour.
… the one whole egg weighs 2 ounces. Multiply that by the factor of 1.65 = 3.3 ounces of flour.
… So, the 3.3 ounces of flour plus the 1.4 ounces of flour = 4.7 ounces of flour. One standard cup of all purpose flour weighs about 4.4 ounces, so the 4.7 ounces of flour equals about 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon of flour.
. add about a half ounce of both water and olive oil.
Note – the recipe doesn’t translate well for much larger quantities.