Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Homemade Pasta

For the first time ever, I made homemade pasta.  I was inspired by a post on the blog SouleMama.  I then looked around online and watched a few youtube videos, like this one, this one, and this one.

I prepared it and served it as part of the recipe for Spaghetti with Zucchini and Lemon from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook.

The pasta was incredible.  I have never had anything like it.

How did I do it?

I put approximately 3 cups of flour on my table, made a depression in the flour, then cracked three eggs into the flour.  I sprinkled about a teaspoon of salt over the eggs.  Using a fork I broke up the yolks and and whisked them in flour.  Slowly more and more flour was incorporated into the mixture until it was doughy.  Then I started kneading flour in until it wasn't sticky anymore.  For twenty minutes I let the dough rest under a bowl.  Next I kneaded the dough a bit more and then divided it into three sections.  I did this because my work area is not big and neither is my rolling pin.  I then rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled.  I made sure that the dough was lightly floured on both sides and rolled it up like a jelly roll.   I cut 1 cm wide slices off the roll.  Next I hung the pasta to dry for an hour.   Thank goodness for my clothes drying rack from IKEA!  I brought a large pot of water to a boil.  I cut the long stings of pasta into pieces about 2.5 inches long and dropped them into the boiling water.  They were done in about 3 minutes.

I also rolled out some dough just for my daughter.  She used a heart shaped cookie cutter to make her own pasta.  The best part was when my daughter said she would make pasta just like this for her kids, whenever they wanted pasta.

Love.