Basic Pasta Dough

Is making fresh pasta really worth it? Up until a few months ago I would have said “no”. I always thought it looked like a lot of work and wasn’t worth the time and effort. But now I would have to say I’ve changed my mind. Some time ago, I was given a pasta rolling machine and was asked to try it out. I put it away in the cabinet and pretty much forgot about it for a long time. I was asked numerous times when I was going to use it, and several months ago I finally gave in. It was shortly after my trip to Scarpetta to try the $24 tomato and basil sauce with fresh pasta. The taste and texture of fresh pasta really stood out to me, so I knew I would soon learn more about it and to eventually try to make it myself.

Now that I’ve finally tried it, I can not believe how simple it is to make fresh pasta. There absolutely is no comparison between fresh and dry pasta. Pasta dough does take some time to prepare, but is extremely easy to work with. It takes about an hour and a half (maximum) from start to finish: mixing and kneading the dough for 10 minutes; resting it for 20 minutes; rolling it out 15-20 minutes (depending on size of the batch and desired thickness of the noodles); drying it for 10 minutes; and finally, cutting it into the desired type of noodles which takes about 15 minutes.

I have tried many different recipes for fresh pasta, most of which vary only by the amount of ingredients of flour, salt, egg and water and/or olive oil. After many months of experimenting, I have come up with my favorite. It has a nice, light texture, cooks up in only 4-5 minutes, and absorbs the flavor of the sauce beautifully.

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Ingredients

1/2 Cup "00" Type Flour
1/2 Cup Semolina Flour
1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk
2 Tablespoons Cold Water
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Teaspoons Salt

Note

Recipe makes enough pasta for two large servings. If you need more, just double or triple recipe.

Directions


Sift all flour into a shallow dish and mix together. Make a well in the center of flour.

Mix egg, egg yolk, water, salt and olive oil together and pour into well.

Mix everything together. If dough is too wet, add more flour and if dough is dry, add a little water.

Knead dough for about five minutes.

Wrap in plastic wrap and let dough rest for at least twenty minutes.

Flour work surface and pasta roller.

Run dough through pasta roller on setting # 1.

Fold dough back into itself and run through pasta roller on setting # 1. Repeat this step 3 - 4 times.

Run dough through roller once on each setting until you get to # 5. You can go to # 6 if you want very thin pasta.

At this point you have pasta sheets that you can use right away for things like lasagna and manicotti. These sheets can also be used to make many different shapes of pasta either cut by hand or by using the pasta cutter on the rolling machine.