Homemade Pasta!

Well folks, Pat and I have the homemade pasta bug, which we acquired at a cooking class we took together on my birthday.  Basically making pasta is soooo easy, and it's fun (it's actually quite novel), so why not make some for yourself?  We (read: Pat) has been really, really, really wanting to make pasta at home since the class, and we finally did it (hey, it only took me about 2 weeks after the class to get the motivation to make the pasta)!

You don't necessarily need a pasta roller, to make pasta.  In fact, our teacher told us that the person who taught him to make pasta was an old Italian immigrant that lived in the Bronx; she used to make pasta everyday, roll it out by hand with a rolling pin, and hang it around her house to dry.  I have this very romantic image of this little old Italian woman in the bronx making pasta by hand...it really makes you appreciate the art of making food, like truly creating food for love, not just to stuff ourselves silly.  

Anyway, if you have a pasta roller, it does make the processes a lot easier.  The recipe for making pasta is ridiculously easy.  The one we used is from The Chopping Block...enjoy!

Your ingredients

Blend all ingredients 

Dough Ball

Roll out the dough.

Cut your pasta and enjoy.

Ingredients

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup semolina

3 eggs

1-2 tablespoons water

Directions

1.  Place the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor.

2.  Add eggs and 1 tablespoon of water; process until well combined.

3.  Test dough to make sure it will hold together.  If it is dry, add up to a tablespoon more water as needed to make the dough moist, but not sticky (I used 2 tablespoons of water).

5.  Wrap the dough tightly in plastic and allow it to rest at least 20 minutes.

6.  Roll out pasta in a pasta roller until smooth, then roll into sheets and cut into desired noodles.**

7.  Plunge pasta into rapidly boiling salted water, cook until tender, about 2 minutes, and serve at once with your favorite sauce.

8.  If you do not want to use right away, the pasta can be frozen, or laid straight to dry.

**To use a pasta roller: start by cutting dough ball in half.  Flatten one edge of dough ball to run through pasta roller smoothly.  After the dough has gone through one time, fold it into thirds to make a straight edge to run through the roller with the open edge feeding through the roller first (see photo below-excuse the blurriness).  Run thru the roller until you can seal the edges into a large loop.  Run the loop of dough through each size on the roller at least twice until the desired thickness.  Make sure to use enough flour to prevent sticking.  At this point the noodles can be cut by the machine or by hand. 

Homemade Spaghetti!