Pasta Making 101

The last couple weeks have been busy, so I determined that this afternoon would be playtime. Thus decided, I headed for the kitchen with my newest toy and a good reference book to entertain myself by taking my first stab at making fresh pasta.

While I'm not a fan of semolina flour in bread, I opted to use it for my trial run of pasta since it's traditionally the base for classic egg noodles.

Having opted not to own a KitchenAid, I did everything by hand. Good thing I've got lots of kneading practice from baking bread!





As always, my beloved giant stoneware bowl proved it's versatility and was perfect for the task at hand. (My husband buys me the nicest things!)

Two kinds of flour, some eggs, a splash of water and some elbow grease to mix it all together was all it took to make the dough.

After it rested for 20 min, it was ready to be rolled into sheets...



Enter my beautiful Imperia pasta roller!

As perfectly simplistic in form and function as my flour grinder, I found this a snap to get set up and rolling.

Have I mentioned that I appreciate equipment that is easy to clean, too? Just dust off the excess flour and slide it back in it's box for storage - nice!




These are my sheets of pasta as I rolled the dough out. Each time you roll the dough out, you fold it over and roll it again - a suggested total of 10 times - to reach the flawless consistency you want for your finished product.

(Incidentally, those sheets in the back corner of the picture should have been covered to protect their consistency, not sitting out in the open.)



Once the whole batch is rolled out, it gets another brief rest (covered). Then you slide on your cutter attachment and determine what kind of noodles you want - round (spaghetti) or flat (fettuccine, etc.)

Not being a fan of the former, I opted for the latter.





I should have added a little flour at this point so they stuck together less, but it worked fine as it was.

It was very exciting to see the noodles in their final shape and feel a sense of accomplishment. I thought this was going to be a lot harder to do and take a lot longer than it did.





Clearly I still need to work on properly "nesting" the noodles, as I only kind of managed to get them in sloppy circles rather than proper "nests".

Here's the finished product, waiting neatly in a bowl to be briefly boiled and shared. I can't wait to try again, and to expand my range into flavored pastas, gluten free noodles, and ravioli!

Definitely an afternoon well spent. :0)