Homemade Pasta

Homemade pasta is the hallmark of good Italian cuisine.

One of the things that got me started as a serious cook was my love for pasta. I wanted to know the secrets to making my own, homemade pasta. After a bit of practice (and some equipment upgrades), I can make it without really thinking about it. It is a lot of work compared to boiling the dried stuff, and it isn’t nearly as cheap, so I list this as a sometimes food, but sometimes it is worth the effort. You can even infuse it with herbs such as basil, as in the picture below.

Original Source: SeriousEats

Ingredients

• 1 cup AP flour (I’ve heard that 00 flour is better, but haven’t tried it)
• 1 cup semolina flour
• 2 whole eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp olive oil (I prefer the Tuscan herb infused oil from Heavenly Olive Oils)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1-2 tbsp water (if needed)

Equipment

• stand mixer with paddle and dough hook
• pasta roller attachments for mixer (or a hand-cranked pasta roller)

Process

1. Add all ingredients except water to bowl of stand mixer. Beat on low speed with paddle until combined well. Add water 1 tbsp at a time if needed to get ingredients to combine.
2. Switch to dough hook and knead on medium-low speed for 2-3 minutes. It will be a very stiff ball of dough, but it should knead without too much trouble.
3. Put dough on lightly-floured surface and knead for 5-8 minutes until smooth and slightly elastic. It will be tough, but the drier your dough, the better it works.
4. Put dough in a bowl and let it rest for at least 30 minutes, and ideally 1 hour.
5. Split dough into 4 equal parts. Working one part at a time, roll through pasta roller.

• Start at widest setting and roll 6-8 times, folding over 3 times and rotating 90 degrees after each roll until dough becomes a smooth sheet. Add flour as needed to keep things from sticking. More flour is better than less at this point.
• Slowly adjust roller to progressively smaller settings. If needed. cut sheet in half to make it more manageable.
• Once all sheets are made, switch to cutting attachments and cut into noodles. Form a floured nest with each set of noodles.

6. To cook, boil 3-4 quarts of water with lOTS of salt (you want it to be “salty as the sea”). Add noodles (the extra flour on the noodles will wash away) and boil 90 seconds to 3 minutes. It doesn’t take too long for homemade noodles, even if they are dried and frozen.

I recommend serving with a nice bolognese sauce! Or maybe even a better bolognese sauce!

Notes

• 2016-02-20 - Infusing with basil herbs works great. Infusing with sun-dried tomatoes and red peppers from a jar didn’t work as well. Too much moisture in both, so probably should adjust amounts accordingly to get a solid dough. But, it was tasty!