Home·Making

Technique · Making

Using a pasta machine

The hand-crank pasta machine is the modern home cook's practical solution to a sheet that, by hand, takes a sfoglina years to learn. An Imperia or a Marcato Atlas 150 will roll a four-egg dough to tagliatelle thickness in about ten minutes. The technique is straightforward, the results consistent, and the difference from hand-rolled pasta — while real — is small.

The machines

Two manufacturers dominate the home pasta-machine market and have done so for most of the last century. Imperia (founded in Pinerolo, Piedmont, 1932) and Marcato (founded in Padova, 1930) both make hand-crank sheet rollers in chrome-plated steel, with a body that clamps to a kitchen counter, a roller assembly with adjustable thickness settings, and removable cutter attachments. The Imperia SP 150 and the Marcato Atlas 150 are the standard models; both have rolling-width and cutting-width of 150 mm. They are functionally near-identical and either will last a lifetime if kept dry.

The thickness settings on both machines are numbered, typically 0 to 9 (Imperia) or 0 to 9 (Marcato) with smaller numbers giving thicker sheets. The exact correspondence to millimetres varies slightly between models, but in practice: setting 5 or 6 is the standard for tagliatelle (around 1 mm); setting 7 for tagliolini and tajarin; setting 4 for pappardelle. The variation depends on your particular machine's wear and the elasticity of the day's dough; tune by eye and feel after the first pass.

Electric attachments and stand-mixer extensions (KitchenAid pasta roller, for instance) exist and work similarly. Fully automatic extruders (Philips Pasta Maker and others) are a different category — they mix and extrude through dies rather than rolling sheets — and produce a pasta closer to industrial extruded pasta than to true sfoglia. They are useful for short cut shapes; for ribbon pasta, the sheet-rolling machines are correct.

The workflow

Start with the standard dough, kneaded and rested. Have a tray dusted with semola flour ready to catch the cut ribbons, and a small bowl of plain flour for the occasional dusting between passes.

1. Divide the dough. A four-egg dough is too large to pass through the rollers in one piece. Divide into four equal portions. Keep three covered under a damp cloth or wrapped in cling film; work with one at a time.
2. Flatten by hand. Press the first portion into a flat rectangle roughly 10 by 8 cm and not more than 1 cm thick. Dust both sides lightly with flour.
3. First pass at setting 1 (widest). Feed the rectangle between the rollers, cranking steadily. The sheet emerges thinned and slightly longer.
4. Fold in thirds and pass again. Fold the emerging sheet in thirds like a letter (or in half if the sheet is short), turn it 90 degrees, and feed it back through at setting 1. Repeat this three or four times. This is the equivalent of kneading and aligns the gluten in the direction of subsequent rolling. It is the secret to a smooth, even sheet; skipping it is the most common mistake.
5. Reduce setting by one. Move to setting 2. Pass the sheet through once; do not fold. Move to setting 3, pass once. Continue, reducing the setting one notch at a time, passing once at each setting.
6. Stop at the target setting. For tagliatelle, finish at setting 5 or 6 (your machine's mid-thin range). The sheet should be smooth, faintly translucent, and around 1 mm thick. If it has a fold mark or a thick edge, return to the previous setting, fold, and re-pass.
7. Lay out and dust. Lay the finished sheet on a lightly floured board or clean tea towel. Let it rest 5 to 10 minutes — long enough to dry the surface slightly so the cut ribbons will not stick, not so long that it cracks. Dust both sides lightly with flour.
8. Cut with the tagliatelle attachment. Both Imperia and Marcato come with a cutter attachment carrying two cutting widths: a wider channel (typically 6.5 to 7 mm) for tagliatelle, and a narrower one (typically 1.5 to 2 mm) for tagliolini. Feed the sheet through the tagliatelle channel, supporting the emerging ribbons with your other hand.
9. Form into nidi. As the ribbons emerge, catch them in your fingers, dust generously with semola, and form into small nidi (nests) on the prepared tray. Repeat with the remaining three dough portions.

The whole workflow takes 10 to 15 minutes for a four-egg dough once you are familiar with the machine. The first time you use it, allow 25.

The folding step matters

The single most common error in home use of a pasta machine is skipping the folding-and-repeated-passing at the widest setting. It is tempting, having watched the sheet emerge cleanly at setting 1, to simply continue reducing settings. The result is a sheet with uneven thickness, fold marks, and a tendency to tear at the narrower settings. The repeated folding does the work that hand-kneading does: it aligns the gluten and produces a uniform, smooth sheet that will accept progressive thinning without complaint. Do not skip it.

The cutter or the knife

The cutter attachment is fast and produces uniform ribbons. The hand cut, with a long sharp knife on a dusted, rolled sheet, produces slightly more rustic ribbons of marginally varying width — a visual signature of homemade pasta that some Bolognese cooks specifically prefer. Both are legitimate. For an everyday tagliatelle al ragù, the machine cutter is fine; for a dinner where the pasta is to be admired, hand-cut the sheet.

Cleaning and storage

The pasta machine should never be washed in water. Flour residue in the bearings and on the rollers turns to a paste when wet and corrodes the steel. To clean: after use, leave the machine to dry for an hour, then brush out the rollers and the cutter teeth with a stiff dry brush (some come with one) or a wooden toothpick. Wipe the exterior with a slightly damp cloth and dry immediately. Store covered, in a dry cupboard. A well-maintained machine will outlast its owner.

The compromise, briefly

The pasta machine produces excellent ribbons. The sheet is slightly more compact and less porous than a hand-rolled sfoglia, which means it absorbs sauce slightly less; the surface is slightly smoother. For most home cooking the difference is small enough to be uninteresting. For a special meal — ragù bolognese with a dough you have rested overnight, served to guests — you may want to roll by hand. For Tuesday dinner with the family, the machine is correct and the difference will not survive the first bite.