Does pasta dough really need to rest?

Question

I mixed equal parts of semolina and bread flour. Then I kneaded it for about 2 minutes. I flattened it out as well as I could, then passed it through my pasta machine on the widest setting. I did this 5 times by folding lengthwise after every pass through the rollers.

The noodles had great bite when cooked al dente and still held together wonderfully when cooked a little more. Cheese sauce nicely coated them, they were great! Could have been the best pasta I had ever tasted.

I didn't let it rest...not even a little.

Chefs and home cooks alike tell us time and again that you must rest your pasta dough for at least half an hour. Some say 2-3 hours.

So... Does pasta dough really need to rest? Please educate me.

Answer 1

You didn't knead it enough in the first place. 2 minutes is too short even with the pasta machine afterwards.

Pasta, especially the classic semolina pasta (which is mae with durum semolina), is a high-gluten product. To make it correctly, you need to develop that gluten. I don't make semolina-water pasta, but knead my flour-egg pasta for around 8 minutes. It makes a great dough, and you can feel the change in texture while kneading. Of course, dough with that much Glenn is way too tight to work it. Very hard to roll, resists cutting. That's what you need resting for: to relax the gluten. Else, shaping becomes a heavy chore.

There is no food police which will come to arrest you if you make noodles with underdeveloped gluten, but most people prefer the slightly resilient texture of developed-gluten noodles. You describe yours as "having a great bite", and apparently they didn't fall apart in the boiling water. So you could make both side-by-side and decide which is more to your taste. I you stay with the ess kneading, you will need less to no rest.

Answer 2

Pasta is a relatively low moisture, very high protein, bread dough.

The gluten strands that are developed during kneading are very elastic. When kneading by hand it can be very difficult to work the dough enough when it has tightened up.

As with bread dough, a short rest after kneading is not to develop the gluten further but to let the gluten relax so you can shape the dough without it springing back.

I use the same approach as you do and do most of the kneading of my dough in my pasta machine. No rest is required. I can't say what happens on a molecular level with the gluten that makes it easier to work with. I suspect that it is due to being much more thoroughly kneaded and with perpendicular sheets of gluten.

Answer 3

The reason to rest pasta dough after kneading is to allow the flour to fully hydrate, aiding gluten formation, and resulting in a dough that stretches easily. You can, in fact speed this hydration by vacuum sealing your dough. However, if you feel your dough is stretching easily when you work with it, there is no need to rest it. If the dough springs back when working it or rolling it, it will benefit from a rest of at least 20 minutes.