have a pasta-making attachment for your mixer, even better!)
Flatten the dough as much as you can and, with the pasta machine
at its widest setting, feed it through.
Now here’s the thing: the first time it goes through, it’ll come
out looking like Swiss cheese. That’s okay! This step, with the
pasta machine at the widest setting, is totally forgiving: you can’t
screw up. You can put it through this setting again and again, and
each time you do, the dough will get smoother and flatter (you’re
essentially kneading it). The goal is to create a smooth rectangular
sheet that is the same width as the machine itself: to achieve this
you can fold the dough in half or you can lay pieces of dough on
top of each other and feed that through until you get a smooth
sheet. Continue folding and feeding (sprinkling with flour if it’s
too sticky) until you do.
When you have a smooth, rectangular flat sheet, lower the
machine to the second setting and run the dough through once. Pay
attention to the dough as it goes in: you don’t want it to fold upon
itself as it goes through, or your dough won’t be a smooth sheet
anymore.
Run it one time through the third, fourth, and fifth settings*. If
the dough is sticking, sprinkle it with a little more flour.
Run it through the second-to-thinnest setting three times. At
this point, the dough should be thin enough for tortellini and
certain other pasta shapes. (If you made it too thin, it wouldn’t
hold the filling or its shape.) If you’re making linguine or
tagliatelle, take it thinner, running it three times through the final