Pasta schmo to pasta pro

Alto

For the handmade tortellini we were making, the dough calls for 00 (double zero) flour and eggs—pretty much the simplest ingredients known to man. 00 is super-fine flour—standard grocery store flour is graded 1. 0 grade is somewhere in-between. Michael explained that egg pasta was traditionally a northern Italian staple, whereas the southern Italian pastas were made of durum wheat and water. This goes back to the days when the north was much more prosperous—they had eggs to spare, while southerners relied on a thriftier technique. 

Right off the bat, I was facing off with the dreaded flour well—the volcano-shaped mound that haunts my dreams. Many a time I've started with eggs in the middle and ended with a steady stream of partially mixed sludge dripping onto the floor. Michael offered a quick tip: Once you've cracked your eggs into the well, if it looks like they'll overflow when you start whisking, then you don't have enough flour. Add a bit more to fortify the walls before beating the eggs. My egg-stained kitchen tiles thank you, kind sir.