Have you ever seen the movie: Eat Pray Love? The scene when Julia Robert eats this awesome plate of pasta on her journey in Italy? The way she enjoys it? Wow! I love pasta, and so does my family. My son enjoys the pasta mostly plain – weird yes, but hey. I have been buying pasta forever, all types of it. Whole wheat, black pasta, spinach pasta, regular pasta, pasta with eggs and without, you name it. At some point I thought I am going to make my own pasta. Just to see if it tastes as close as the “fresh” pasta you can buy in the refrigerator section at the supermarket. Well, I must say that MY pasta was so much better and I knew 100% what was in it which also means no preservatives.
Here is my recipe in easy steps:
Pasta Maker Roller Machine or A simple rolling pin
So, let’s start:
Ingredient for 4 people:
5 eggs
1.1 lbs flour (500g Mehl)
pinch of salt
Yep! THIS is IT!
You put the flour into a bowl. Put a hole in the middle of the flour (like a volcano) and put one egg after the other into it.
Now take a fork and mix the eggs slowly into the flour. Then kneel the dough with your hand on a floured surface. This is important, otherwise your dough will stick to the table. It has to be a soft, tender dough so you have to kneel it for some time. Now divide the dough in 3-4 parts. If you have the feeling that the dough is too dry and won’t stick together nicely, add one tablespoon of water. Then kneel again. If necessary add another one obviously. If the dough appears to be too soft add one tablespoon of flour. Now let dough rest for at lest 15 minutes by putting it in a bowl and cover it with a dish towel. This step is necessary because it allows the moisture from the eggs (and water if you added some) to distribute nicely throughout the dough. This makes it easier for you to work with afterwards. Your dough should look somewhat like this:
Now divide the dough into six even portions. You work with one piece of dough at a time so you might keep the other ones covered with the dish towel so they won’t dry out. Take the piece of dough you are working with and put some flour on it so it is not sticky. My mom has the Original Italian Pasta Maker at home but for this recipe I used my rolling pin. You have to roll over the dough several times until desired thinness is reached. (The thinner dough is, the faster it will be cooked!) Whenever your dough becomes too long to roll out, simply cut in half and keep on rolling. If too sticky, add some more flour. Roll out all your dough portions. It should look somewhat like this:
Now start cutting your dough. You can be all creative here, however you want your pasta to look. You can even form ravioli and stuff them with spinach, cheese whatever you like. I just cut mine into long thicker strips which is very easy.
I let the cut pasta dry a bit on a clean dish towels until I cut the remaining dough. This is it. Now bring a pot of water to a boil, add one tablespoon of salt and put as much pasta in as you like. You can put the rest in the fridge if you use it in the next couple of days again or you dry it and store it in a bag.
Enjoy!
