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Dry Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting and to keep the dough from sticking

½ teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients

1 large egg plus 1 large egg white, at room temperature

1 tablespoon olive oil

One 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed of all excess moisture, and pureed in a food processor or large blender

Sauce Suggestions: Spinach noodles are very versatile and work well with about any light sauce—just steer clear of ragùs.

Turning the Dough into Noodles

Once you have made a dough in lemon-sized balls, use one of these two methods to make noodles.

To make noodles with a rolling pin:

Lightly flour your work surface, place one of the pasta balls on it, and flour a wooden rolling pin. Flatten the ball slightly, then begin rolling it out with quick, short, but smooth movements, pushing the dough away from you rather than down against the work surface. Rotate the dough and repeat the process at different angles until you have a circle about 9 inches in diameter.

To stretch the dough, dust it with a little flour, then roll it about a quarter of the way onto the pin, like the music over a player-piano reel. Holding the dough onto the pin with one hand, use the other hand to stretch the part that still lies on the work surface, pulling the dough toward you and rolling the pin away from you at the same time. Keep a firm pressure, but be gentle—don’t tear the pasta. Unroll the dough, rotate it about a quarter turn, and stretch again. Work quickly: you’re trying to overcome the glutens and the dough has a tendency to snap back to its original state.

Unroll the dough, give it a light dusting of flour, and again roll about a quarter of it onto your pin. Gently roll the pin back and forth against the work surface, moving your hands over the pin itself, from the center to the outside, thereby rolling and stretching the dough as you rock it back and forth on the pin. Work quickly here, too—you’re trying to beat the clock because the dough is drying and could start cracking. Unroll the sheet, rotate it several degrees, roll about a quarter of it back onto the pin, and repeat. You’ll need to do this several times, at several different angles on the sheet.

Once the dough is less than 1/8 inch thick, unroll it from the pin, lay it flat against the work surface, then gently fold it up, turning over 6-inch segments of the dough until it looks like a sheet of paper that’s been folded (but not creased). Slice the folded dough into strips anywhere from ¼ inch to over ½ inch wide; unfold the noodles. Open a cabinet door, lay a clean kitchen towel over it, and drape the noodles over the towel to dry while you shape the other balls.

To make noodles in a pasta machine:

Lightly dust one of the pasta balls with flour, then run it through the machine on the widest setting. Fold the dough in half and run it through again. Do this about eight or nine times until the dough is fairly smooth. Add a small dusting of flour any time the dough starts to stick.

Decrease the thickness setting of the rollers by one notch, lightly flour the dough again, and run it through. As it comes out the other end, catch it with your hand and pull it gently away from the machine, cranking all the while with your other hand.

Keep reducing the thickness setting by one notch, running the pasta sheet through the machine each time and catching it as it comes out. (We like slightly thicker noodles and rarely go to the narrowest setting; instead, we prefer the next-to-thinnest setting—#6 on most modern machines.)

Once the sheet has come out of the machine for the last time, switch the crank mechanism and run the sheet through the cutting blades, thereby making noodles the width you desire. Open a cabinet door, lay a clean kitchen towel over the door, and drape the noodles over it to dry while you shape the other balls.

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Cooking Pasta

Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a boil. Use about 6 quarts water for a pound of fresh pasta or ½ pound dried pasta, with an extra quart for every succeeding ½ pound