Handmade Pasta from Scratch (Tagliatelle)

Mound the flour on a clean work surface and make a wide well in the center with your fist. Crack the eggs and the extra yolk into the well and add the salt.

Beat the eggs with a fork, slowly pulling flour in from the inner wall of the well as you go. Keep the wall intact until the mixture is too thick to run. When it turns into a shaggy paste, switch to a bench scraper and bring it all together.

Knead for a full 10 minutes — push with the heel of your hand, fold, turn a quarter, repeat. The dough goes from rough to smooth to genuinely elastic. It's ready when you press a thumb in and the dent springs most of the way back.

Wrap the dough tightly in plastic and rest it at room temperature for 30 minutes, up to 2 hours. This is not optional. The gluten has to relax or the sheets will fight you and snap back every time you roll them.

Cut the dough into 4 pieces and keep three covered. Flatten one into a rough rectangle and run it through the widest setting of a pasta roller.

Fold that sheet into thirds like a letter, turn it 90 degrees, and pass it through the widest setting again. Repeat 3 or 4 times. This laminates the dough and squares the edges — a few extra minutes here saves you ragged pasta later.

Now work down one setting at a time, passing the sheet through each once and dusting lightly with '00' flour if it gets tacky. Stop at about 1/16 inch (1.5 mm) — usually the second-to-last setting. You should be able to see the shadow of your hand through it.

Lay the finished sheets on a floured towel and let them dry 10 to 15 minutes, until leathery to the touch but still flexible. Too wet and the ribbons glue together. Too dry and they crack.

Dust a sheet generously with semolina, roll it loosely into a flat log, and cut across into 1/3-inch (8 mm) ribbons with a sharp knife. One clean stroke per cut — sawing tears the edges.

Unfurl each cut ribbon, toss with semolina, and coil into loose nests on a semolina-dusted sheet pan. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Bring a large pot of water to a hard boil and salt it heavily — it should taste like seawater. Fresh pasta has no seasoning of its own.

Cook the tagliatelle 2 to 3 minutes. Fresh pasta is done fast, so taste at 2 minutes and trust your mouth, not the clock.

Reserve a cup of the pasta water before draining. Toss the pasta with your sauce in a hot pan for 30 to 60 seconds, loosening with pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce clings instead of pooling.