Mama Mia! – Fresh Pasta

Hello again, friends!  I was doing some experimenting in the kitchen this weekend, and I stumbled across my Imperia pasta roller (which, incidentally I bought three years ago and never used).  Given my obsession with Italian food, and how I prefer making everything I can from scratch, I decided to give fresh pasta a whirl. 

I’ve got no fewer than 10 cookbooks of various kinds sitting around, and I figured that I would be able to get the gist of homemade pasta from at least one of them.  So, I compared some recipes, made a few notes, and came up with what I think is the 98% solution.  Of course, that’s a fancy way of saying that it’s super easy and requires only two ingredients: eggs and flour. 

Given all the fancy gadgets and doodads in the modern kitchen, it was refreshing to make something simple and without all that stuff.  So here’s the skinny: put about 2¼ cups of flour in a bowl and then reach in a make a well in the center with your fingers.  Make sure it’s big enough to hold the three eggs that you’re going to crack in the middle.  Well, get to it…I’ll wait. 

Once you’ve cracked the eggs in the middle, very carefully start to whip them up with a fork, slowly drawing in flour from the sides of the well, but NOT breaking the wall of the well. 

 

Basically, keep the eggs in the middle, and keep whipping them around, reaching into the sides of the well a little more each time until the eggs aren’t runny anymore, then just get your hands in there and mix it up.  

If you need to add a little water, do so a tablespoon at a time.  I had to add two since I had everything all bundled up and had extra flour left over. 

 

Keep kneading and folding until you get a slightly moist ball of dough that looks about like this.

Now wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes. 

When it comes time to roll it out, you have a couple of options.  Whip out your pasta roller (hence the reason I’m writing this in the first place), or limber up and get out the old rolling pin.  If you use the roller, you still need to spend some time with the rolling pin. 

 

 Either way, work in batches and flatten the dough out until you have the thickness you want.  In the roller, work from the widest setting to about the middle setting.  If it’s too thin, the cutter will just make a mess of it.

Ok, from here on out, I’m just going to talk about the machine.  Like I said, roll the sheets out to a medium thickness.  Each quarter of the ball of dough will roll out to about 2 feet or more of pasta.  I rolled each one out individually and then sent them through the cutter one after the other.
 

 

 

 

Sure, it takes a little technique (which I barely have), but it worked out ok.  Now when you’re done, make sure to dust each batch with flour and then twist them into neat little nests. 

If you cook the pasta right away, it’s totally ready.  If not, wrap it in something airtight and refrigerate.  When you do cook it, realize that it only takes about 3 minutes, so get your water to a rolling boil, drop it in, and be ready to fish it out quickly.  Too long, and it’ll be mushy.  Then of course toss it with your favorite sauce and enjoy. 

Well, friends, I hope you find this as easy and rewarding as I did.  As always, let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.  Feel free to email me at fearnotyourkitchen@gmail.com with anything you’ve got, or send me a tweet @fearlessfoodguy. 

Until next time, friends!