The Omnivorous Fish

Julie,

I find the food processor a superior animal to the kitchenaid for making pasta. Even a large commercial mixer is not as good as a kneader, which is like a double dough-hook that sits sideways into the bowl (useful for making pasta in 50 lbs of flour quantities). But three cheers for you for doing it by hand.

When I’m feeling really emotional, I’ll spread out three big handfuls of flour on the pasta board, no bowl, nothing, and crack the eggs right into the mongibiddu (Mount Etna, a Sicilian volcano). Then you stir with a fork until you can knead. Talk about old-school.

The conventional wisdom is three eggs to two cups of flour, plus some water and oil. Egg yolks don’t count for much, really. Tajarin is made with 30 egg yolks to a kilo of flour; half that many eggs would make pasta.

There has been some noise made about me possibly teaching a pasta class. Any takers?