This may seem like a huge task to some, but it's really simple and the possibilities are endless.
When I first starting making pasta, I just used a bowl, a rolling pin, a knife and a clothes drying rack. Now I use my wonderful KitchenAid mixer and my pasta machine. I'll go through both processes as we go along.
First, the ingredients!
4 eggs (I don't recommend using processed egg beater liquids, but if you do, 4 eggs = 1 cup)
2 cups of flour (I use whole unbleached wheat, but all purpose and bread flours are fine)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Everyone on the web says, "make a well in the flour." Honestly, after making pasta on a weekly basis for six months, I find it works easier to follow these steps:
1) Whisk your eggs and extra virgin olive oil together in a sizable mixing bowl.
You can do this with a fork and an arm of steel or a KitchenAid mixer using the
whisk attachment. I strongly do not recommend using a whisk for this part.
2) Add flour 1/4 cup at a time.
I find that by adding the flour 1/4 at a time, it's easier to mix and your hands stay cleaner longer.
Use a fork to stir in the flour, a whisk or your KitchenAid mixer using the bread
hook attachment.
3) You'll start to notice, if you're doing this by hand, sans KitchenAid mixer, that the pasta dough is becoming a lot less accepting of your fork. At this point dump the contents onto the counter, messy but it'll come together, I promise. :)
Hand kneading dough is fairly simple. Just remember to push the dough away from you,
then fold it back towards you and push it away again. After doing this a few times, roll
up your dough into a ball and with any excess flour you dumped out, simply put the
dough ball over it and knead. Push away and fold. Repeat this process until all 2 cups
of flour have been absorbed into the dough.
If you're using a KitchenAid mixer, and you find the dough isn't getting the flour on the
bottom of your mixing bowl, dump the contents onto the counter and follow the
instructions above!
4) A lot of text, but not that hard, right? Now you just ball up your pasta dough and put it under a bowl on the counter. Let it sit like that for 20-30 mins to rest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Interlude~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5) Alright, 20-30 mins have passed, your dough should be looking just about like playdough. Squish it so it's not a ball, and cut it (like a pizza) into 8 pieces. With your bowl turned upright, ball up those 8 pieces and put them in the bowl and put a plate over the bowl to keep those dough balls from drying out!
Alrighty, this is where i'm going to divide the "by hand" and "by pasta machine" tutorial up.
By hand:
6) Take your first ball of pasta dough and your rolling pin and roll it flat. Start by rolling it out about 12-20 inches long, fold it in half and roll it 12-20 inches long again. This may take a bit, but keep rolling until you get the thickness/thinness you want.
7) Sprinkle some flour on one of the sides of the now flat pasta dough and flip it over onto the floured side and set aside. It will need to dry out a bit before you cut it. Remember which one was your first.
8) Repeat steps 6 & 7 until all 8 dough balls are flat, elongated looking pancake things.
9) So taking your first flattened pasta dough, (it should feel a bit harder than it was when you first rolled it) fold it around and around itself. Take a pizza cutter or a knife, and cut thin/thick slices.
10) Once cut, hang them on the drying rack. Repeat step 9 with the remaining 7!
By Pasta Machine:
6) Set your machine's dial to 7 (or whatever highest number you have). Flour is your best friend, so sprinkle flour all over that pasta machine! Take your first dough ball, and flatten it evenly first with your rolling pin. Not too thin, just enough so your machine doesn't throw a hissy fit that the dough isn't all one width.
Sometimes the pasta machine just doesn't cooperate.
You can try patting the pasta dough with
your hand without the use of a rolling pin,
but I find it easier just to use the rolling pin to make
a flat oval shape that the pasta rolling pins won't fuss over.
7) Feed your flat oval shape dough through the rolling pins by cranking slowly. Once it's through, fold it in half and slowly crank it through again. Put the dial down to the next number down, in my case, dial 6.
8) Repeat step 7 until you get to dial 5. On dial 5, a trick I saw on youtube, when your dough is about, eh, halfway through the rolling pins, take the other end of the dough that has already been fed through and stick it to the other end making a loop! Stay cranking on dial 5 for a bit to make sure the dough has stuck together.
9) I usually stop the dial at 3, sometimes 2, but if you want to go to 1, go for it! Just be careful, this dough is now super thin.
10) Instead of letting the dough dry a bit, flour both sides lightly with flour, move your hand crank to the cutter attachment you plan on using (I like the fettuccine one), and just feed it through. Grab the cut pasta and hang on the drying rack.
It is totally fine if the pasta edges stick together. When they dry they'll probably still
be stuck together, but when you cook them, they separate like magical unicorn hair!
11) Repeat steps 7-10, making sure you sprinkle flour on the pasta machine between each dough ball.
Both by hand and by pasta machine:
I usually let mine hang out for 24 hours and store in an airtight tupperware container.
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| By hand |
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| By pasta machine |
For cooking, wait until your water has come to a rolling boil, and toss your pasta in. As for how long, it depends on how thick or thin you made it. I use a pasta ladle and catch a pasta strand and bite into it to see if it's done or not.
That's all! More typing than anything! You can also add herbs to the ingredients, my favorite is dill, but oregano, basil, garlic powder, etc all make great tasting pasta!
Happy Baking!
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