Up until last week I had never made my own pasta. I'm not sure why. I'm usually pretty adventurous in the kitchen but had not tried pasta yet. Last week I finally did. I was scared to do it, but I wanted to try it and conquer my fear. I found an easy recipe for it in the River Cottage Family Cookbook. Two ingredients. Flour and eggs. That's it. I went to the cupboard to look at a box we had in there and there were seven ingredients in it.
So, I Facebooked my trepidation and let all of my friends know that I was going to make pasta. Then I went out into the kitchen and did it. You know what? It was easy. I was worried I wouldn't be able to roll it out to the desired thinness the cookbook said. It said I had to roll it so thin that if I put a newspaper under it I would be able to see the print. I've never worked with a dough that did that. It is usually too sticky to do so. This wasn't. This was the most fun I've had in the kitchen for a while. The dough was so stretchy. I was able to move it around and it didn't tear. I was able to get it so thin that I was sure it would either stick to my board or fall apart as I moved it. None of that happened. When I cooked it up I was so excited that it only took two minutes to boil. And when we ate it, oh my, so good.
Today I made it again. I took pictures of the steps so that I could share with you how easy it is to do.
Step One:
Sift the flour into a bowl. I don't have a sifter so I used my strainer. Works like a charm.
Step Two:
Make a well in the center of the flour.
Step Three:
Add the eggs. Organic Free Range eggs from our local farm.
Step Four:
Whisk the eggs and start pulling flour into the middle. I whisk it a bit and then just use my fingers to mix it all together.
Step Five:
Drop the dough out onto a floured board and knead for a few minutes, until it's not sticking to your fingers.
Step Six:
Wrap the dough in a damp tea towel and let sit. The cookbook says to sit for 15 minutes, but I usually let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour. I've read that the longer it sits, the better it is for making the dough stretchy.
Ok...break time. Your dough is resting now. This process has taken me about 10 minutes to do. Probably just under ten minutes. During the break time I clean up the mess I've made with the flour. I am a messy flour thrower in the kitchen.
Step Seven:
Unwrap the dough. I cut my dough in half so that it is easier to work with. I do not have a pasta making machine. I don't have the thing that pulls the dough through and then cuts it. I can buy a a pasta attachment to my mixer if I want, but right now I'm having fun doing myself.
Step Eight:
Roll that baby out. It really is a lot of fun to work with. It doesn't tear. It stretched right out, no problem.
Step Nine:
I cut my dough in half and flipped one half over on top of the other half and then just sliced the dough into strips. The recipe I was making tonight called for fettuccine so I made them thick slices.
Step Ten:
It's drying time. Don't you love my handy dandy hangers? I work with what I have. I'm not sure about the purpose of drying it out. If you are going to use your pasta right away I don't really think there is much of a need for it. If you are going to store your pasta for a couple of days then you should dry it out. I dried it because it told me to...plus I liked walking into my kitchen and seeing it all hanging. It made me feel all domestic.
That's it. That is all there is to making pasta. It is so easy and fun to do and tastes great. I hope everyone will try it at least once.
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