Making Pasta From Scratch (I did it!)

Published by Maida

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

So I made homemade pasta today.  This is the second time I've done it, so I wasn't totally confused about what to do this time around.  The recipe - which makes a single serving - is very simple:

3/4 cup of flour (note: I used all-purpose flour, and cannot vouch for the proper "durum" flour or whole-grain flour)
1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil (good quality olive oil is important!)
1 large egg
Salt and pepper to taste

Note:  You'll also need a rolling pin.  Or a cleaned-off, empty bottle of wine.

That's it.  Those are the ingredients. 

To start, put the flour in a bowl.  Make a hole in the middle, and put in the olive oil and the egg.  Stir it all together (I used a fork) until the flour, egg, and olive oil are blended.  The two times I've made pasta with this recipe, I quit "mixing" the dough once it turned into a collection of floury balls in the bowl.  At this point, I used my hands and formed it all into a single pasta-ball.

Next, use your rolling pin (or your bottle of wine ... which I used the first time around), and roll it out until it's really thin.  In the interest of space, you might consider breaking the dough into two halves before starting.

Once the dough is sufficiently thin, cut the noodles.  Make them as narrow or wide as you like (I aimed for an average size).  As you move through this stage, make sure to sprinkle flour over the dough, the roller, and the finished noodles.

First Picture:  The dough has been rolled out, and most of the noodles cut.  Since you won't end up with a perfectly rectangular strip of dough, there will be discards.  I balled the remains (at the top of the picture) and used those for some experimental ravioli.



Second Picture:  All of the noodles have been cut, some parmesan cheese has been grated, and the pasta discards were reformed, rolled out, and made into raviolis (into which I stuffed some shitty mozzarella cheese.  I cooked those later.  Didn't come out so well because the filling was lame and the pasta was too thick).



Next, you'll want to have some boiling water handy.  I made the mistake this time of waiting until after all the noodles had been cut before I began heating the water.  This resulted in the noodles drying out a bit more than I would have liked.  You'll want to add salt to the water for some flavor.

Third Picture:  Boiling the noodles.  The white bubbles at the top are starches.  Make sure you have enough water in the pot to allow the noodles to roam around.



When it's all done, strain the water out, and put whatever you want on it.  I used a store-bought pesto and some grated parmesan cheese.

Voila!