I consider myself a beginning pasta maker so I offer this in that spirit. There are lots of directions for making pasta that can be referenced, some of them with lots of steps. My favorite directions so far come from The Italian Country Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (a cookbook that I love), but the ratio for ingredients that I'm going to share are from somewhere else (I can't remember where, oops). This ratio allows me to make a smaller batch of pasta. It's enough for one meal for two or a couple meals for one person.
What I really want to share is how I've made this into something manageable for me to experiment with. No pasta machine required.
The ingredients: 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 egg, enough warm water to form a dough. In this case it was about 2 tablespoons. I don't recommend starting with whole wheat flour. I haven't had much luck with that yet.
Mix the egg with the flour. I find it helpful to beat the egg before adding it to the flour. I believe that it allows everything to incorporate better.
Add enough water to form a dough. At the stage below it still needs more water:
Go very slowly with adding the water. I add the first tablespoon at once and then dribble water in after that. The last little bit of water added was just a sprinkle.
Knead the dough into a ball. I've kneaded the pasta for the recommended times listed in recipes and for considerably less and not noticed any difference in texture.
This is what it usually looks like when I am done:
This was kneaded for about 3 minutes. Total time at this point is about 5 minutes of work.
After this step the pasta needs to rest. I place my dough in a glass bowl that has a lid and leave it at room temperature for a couple hours.
I use a rolling pin and a cutting board to roll out my pasta. Once you are ready to cook, divide the dough into 4 small pieces and roll in a bit of flour. Here is the first piece that is ready to be rolled out.
I roll it into a strip about 2 1/2 to 3 inches wide and 6 inches long. Make sure there is flour on your board or it will stick and be very messy.
Try to get the pasta as flat as possible, mine is pretty much the same thickness as pie dough.
Here it is rolled and cut:
I usually spread the cut pasta out on a cookie sheet or a tray until it is ready to be cooked. This is a very manageable amount of pasta to work with and won't take up lots of space.
Boil plenty of water to cook the pasta in. The only thing to know about cooking fresh pasta is that it cooks very fast. Two or three minutes might be enough.
Here's the pasta, boiled and covered with a bit of olive oil to keep it from clumping. If the pasta will be stored at this point make sure there is no water in the bottom of the storage dish. It will make the pasta gummy.
Rolling, cutting, and cooking takes about 10 minutes, excluding waiting for the water to boil.
It's yummy just like this with some cheese or with some vegetables but I always take it a step further. This is also where it can be a meal prepared ahead.
When I am ready to eat, I fry the pasta in a bit of olive oil until it just starts to have crunchy brown spots. I sauteed onions before adding the pasta for this batch and then added garlic scape at the very last.
On the plate:
Another very tasty way to use this type of pasta is in a recipe such as this one for Pad See Ew. I've made it several times, leaving out the oyster sauce and cilantro, which I suppose might make my version something else.
If anyone gives this a try, I'd love to hear how it goes!
Goodness! That looks so yummy! I make my pasta in the food processor (easier as I'm not very adept at kneading) and a pasta machine makes it so very easy. Nothing like home made noodles, cannot compare to the boiled dry.
Posted by: Lynn | 06/09/2014 at 09:31 AM
They are a completely different thing aren't they? And yes a food processor and machine would make it very easy.
Posted by: deb g | 06/09/2014 at 05:01 PM