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The basic hand-cranked pasta machine consists of rollers, various pasta cutters, a clamp that attaches the pasta machine securely to a table and a crank.
Make sure your fresh dough is at room temperature and has rested for at least 30 minutes before you begin to shape it into pasta. Working on a lightly floured surface, cut your dough into four approximately equal pieces with a knife. Lightly wrap the pieces you are not working with so they don’t dry out.
Using the palm of your hand, flatten the piece of dough you are going to be making into pasta until it’s about one inch thick. Make the piece of dough as rectangular as possible.
Set the pasta machine rollers to their widest setting. Insert the pasta into the rollers and start cranking to flatten it further. Repeat this process as you progressively narrow the rollers, remembering to flour the pasta so it doesn’t stick. The pasta dough will grow longer and thinner. If the dough becomes too long to manage, feel free to cut it into equal sections and work with these one at a time.
When your rollers are at their narrowest settings, your pasta sheets will be thin, almost translucent, and perfect for making ravioli or for use as lasagna noodles!
If dough gets stuck in your rollers, remember to remove it right away. Dry dough is almost impossible to remove and it will shred your pasta sheets the next time you make pasta.