Few things are more satisfying than digging in to a bowl of freshly made pasta, letting silky lengths of noodles loop around your tongue and feeling the al dente resistance of cooked dough on your teeth. Making homemade pasta is an art, which means there are plenty of ways it can go wrong.

Even pasta’s most experienced creators will curb their imaginations and follow skill and science when it comes to certain pasta principles. Here are six things a seasoned Italian chef worth their salt(ed water) would never do.

1. Getting Too Fancy Too Fast

While it’s tempting to jump into fun shapes with the hopes of revealing yourself a pasta prodigy, “Making pasta needs practice — it’s something that you feel under your hands,” said Katiuscia Rinaldi, Rimini-born head chef at Roman restaurant Yeppa & Co. And even with experience, there are certain types of pasta that pro chefs say will test their technique … and patience.

To Rinaldi, it’s strozzapreti and tortellini, both of which are time-consuming since each piece needs to be individually made by hand. She teaches classes on making the former — which can be both humbling and hilarious, since it’s not the easiest.

Garganelli is another toughie, according to Michael Riddell, executive chef for Team San Jose in California. “You need a specific tool to roll this out one by one. Farfalle can be a pain, too!”

Even with an extruder — a machine that pushes pasta dough through a die to form its respective shape — some shapes are trickier than others. Jeb Aldrich, the executive chef at Relais & Chateaux resort Cataloochee Ranch in North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, and Tyler Haake of modern regional favourite Indaco in Georgia, both cite skinny, breakage-prone cappelletti as a pain to work with.

Most chefs agree that filled or stuffed pastas are more challenging. “They require a little more craftsmanship,” Haake said, which is incidentally why it’s his favourite type to make. For example, he shared that you have to get the egg balance in ravioli dough right or “it can create small cracks and cause it to bust.”

So start with something easy, like pappardelle, fettuccine, gnocchi or orecchiette, and set yourself up for success.

“A common mistake I’ve noticed is that people don’t realize different types of pasta........

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