Romagna sfoglia dough: quantities, eggs and flour

Everything starts here. Before the mattarello, the long Romagna rolling pin, before the cutting, before the ragù muttering away on the hob, there is a well of flour on a wooden board and a couple of eggs broken into the middle. In Romagna the sfoglia, the sheet of egg pasta rolled out by hand, is almost never weighed: the azdora, the woman who ran the farmhouse kitchen, worked by eye, and her eye came from forty years of Sundays. We give you the quantities, but we also tell you what to look for and what to feel under your hands, because in the end that is what counts.

The rule: one egg per 100 grams of flour

The proportion for Romagna sfoglia is easy to remember: one medium egg (55 to 60 g without the shell) for every 100 g of type 00 flour, the fine soft wheat flour Italians call farina 00. Nothing else. No oil, no salt, no water, at least in the basic version. The salt goes into the cooking water, and the oil is not needed because the yolk brings its own fat.

Type 00 flour is the traditional choice: fine, and it gives a smooth sheet the colour of gold (there are also special type 00 flours for fresh pasta on the market, milled a little coarser, which give the sheet a rougher finish). If you want to compare it with semola or with stronger flours, we go into that in the article on which flour to use for fresh pasta.

Here are the quantities for the most common occasions. We count 100 g of flour per person for tagliatelle and tagliolini; for filled pasta 80 g each is enough, because the filling adds bulk.

People	Type 00 flour	Medium eggs	Dough obtained (approx.)
2	200 g	2	320 g
4	400 g	4	640 g
6	600 g	6	960 g
8	800 g	8	1280 g

One practical tip: weigh the eggs. Two eggs of 70 g and two of 50 g are still four eggs, but the dough comes out different. The reference is 60 g of shelled egg for every 100 g of flour: so, taking a more modern approach, and given that every kitchen now has a set of electronic scales, simply weigh the shelled eggs and multiply by 1.66 to get the right quantity of flour for a dough that comes out perfect every time.

The well on the board

The wooden board is not an affectation: wood absorbs a trace of moisture and gives the sfoglia a slightly rough surface that holds the sauce. If you do not have one, marble or steel will do; what matters is that it is wide and steady.

• Tip the flour onto the board and spread it with your fingers into a circle, leaving a crater in the middle with a thin veil of flour across the bottom.
• Break the eggs into the crater. If one looks doubtful, break it into a cup first.
• With a fork, beat the eggs in the centre, without touching the walls, until yolks and whites are combined.
• Keeping the fork turning, draw in the flour from the inner edge of the well a little at a time. The mixture becomes a cream, then a batter, then a lumpy mass.
• When the fork will no longer turn, move to your hands: with a tarocco, the flat plastic dough scraper, or with your palm, gather up all the remaining flour and work it into the mass.

The moment when the walls of the well collapse and the eggs escape across the board is the classic baptism of the beginner. If it happens, do not worry: scrape everything back together and carry on. The sfoglia forgives almost anything except haste.

How long to knead and how to tell when it is ready

This is where the real work happens. Knead with the heel of your hand, pushing the dough away from you and folding it back on itself, turning it a quarter turn each time. You need 8 to 10 minutes of continuous work for 400 g of flour. At first the dough is rough and lumpy and seems unwilling to come together. After five minutes its character changes. After ten it is another thing entirely.

The dough is ready when:

• the surface is smooth and matt, with no cracks or flaking;
• pressed with a finger, the dent rises back slowly: it is elastic;
• it does not stick to the board or to your hands, and the board underneath is clean;
• cut in half with a knife, the inside is compact and even, with no large bubbles or streaks of dry flour.

Our grandmother used to say it whenever she caught us stopping too soon: “La sfoja la s’fa s’al brazi, mia s’la fùria”. The sfoglia is made with the arms, not with haste. She was right: those extra five minutes are the difference between a dough that tears and one that rolls out until you can see the wood through it.

The rest: half an hour, covered

The moment you stop kneading, the dough is as tight as a spring. Try to roll it straight away and it will shrink back and tear. Resting lets the gluten relax and the moisture spread evenly through the dough.

• Shape a ball, flatten it slightly and cover it with an upturned bowl or with cling film pressed against the surface.
• Leave it for 30 minutes at room temperature. Not in the fridge, unless the kitchen is very warm.
• After the rest the dough is softer and more willing: this is the moment to pick up the rolling pin, as we explain in the guide on rolling the sfoglia by hand.

Corrections: when the dough will not behave

Eggs are not all the same, and flour changes with the season and with the humidity of the kitchen. Here is how to put things right.

Too dry

The dough crumbles, refuses to come together, and the edges crack when you fold it. Wet your hands under the tap and carry on kneading: often those few drops are all it needs. If that is not enough, add half a teaspoon of water at a time. Never a stream straight from the tap: water you have added cannot be taken back.

Too wet

The dough sticks to your hands and to the board and will not hold a shape. Dust the surface with a spoonful of flour and knead until it is absorbed; repeat if you need to. A slightly wet dough is still better than a dry one: after the rest it loses some of its stickiness and rolls out well.

If the sheet cracks at the edges as you roll it, the dough was dry; if it sticks to the rolling pin, it was wet. In the article on the most common mistakes with homemade sfoglia you will find the rest of the symptoms along with the cures.

The variations

One egg per 100 grams is the base, but every shape has its ideal sheet.

Long pasta and filled pasta

For tagliatelle, tagliolini and pappardelle we use the classic formula, while for filled shapes it pays to keep the dough slightly wetter, so that the sheet is more elastic to hold the fillings well and more pliable for making the various closures (cappelletti, ravioli, cappellacci and so on). In this case the little magic formula is the weight of the eggs multiplied by 1.55, which gives the right quantity of flour for a perfectly elastic dough.

Green sfoglia with spinach

The sheet for lasagne verdi alla romagnola is made with 100 g of boiled spinach, squeezed very hard and chopped very finely, for every 300 g of flour and 2 eggs. The spinach brings water with it, so you drop one egg compared with the basic quantity. Squeeze it until not another drop comes out, otherwise the dough stays soft and the sheet stains the board.

Once you have the ball of dough sitting under its bowl, the hardest part is behind you. From here on it is your arms and the mattarello doing the talking, and Sunday tagliatelle al ragù are only an hour away.