Making Homemade Pasta
Basically it is one cup flour to one cup egg.
All you need is flour (I used All Purpose, but adding some high protein flour helps), eggs, and water.
You can mix directly on your table and use your hands, but I used a mixing bowl and fork to start.
A rolling pin and knife are needed to shape and cut your pasta.
Step 1: Add eggs and incorporate into dough
Make a indent into your flour, and break the egs into the center of the depression. Gently beat eggs, and slowly move outward incorporating the flour bit by bit until you end up with a ball of dough.
Depending on the weather, the flour, the size of the eggs, and if you held your mouth right, you may need to add a small bit of water to totally form the dough.
Once you have a ball of dough, dump it out onto a large floured surface.
Step 2: Knead
Knead the dough thoroughly. You want to really work the gluten in the wheat. It will become smooth and take a consistency a lot like play dough.
Step 3: Roll out very thinly
Using a rolling pin roll your dough out until it is as thin as you can make it. Pasta will plump as it cooks, so take that into consideration. It is nice if you can keep your dough roughly rectangular in shape, but I always give up as I try to keep it thin.
Step 4: Cut into strips
You can cut your dough by hand (great if you have patience and attention to detail and want very thin strips) This is most easily done with a pizza cutter or very large dough knife. BUt I find it easier to roll the dough and cut little pinwheels (see my article on the easy way to cut pasta dough).
Step 5: Cook
You could dry the noodles for later by handing them up. They make special drying racks made of small wood dowels, but I think past is much tastier if cooked fresh.
All you need is boiling water. Dump the noodles in the water and they will cook in 2 or 3 minutes.
Drain and serve with whatever sauce you like best.
Enjoy
