Homemade Pasta

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Fresh, homemade egg noodles in about two hours. It’s easier than you think. Plus, it’s satisfying to make and even more satisfying to eat. Dress your homemade pasta with simple tomato sauce, a hearty ragù, or your favorite pasta sauce.

Prep Time1

Cook Time5

Resting Time1

Total Time2 5

Course: Entree

Cuisine: Italian

Diet: Low Lactose

Servings: to 6

Author: Domenica Marchetti

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups (300 g) unbleached all-purpose flour, 00 pasta flour, or a combination
3 extra large eggs room temperature, or 3 large eggs plus 1 to 3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

Start with the flour. Mound the flour onto a clean work surface and make a wide, shallow well in the middle.
Add the eggs and olive oil. Break the eggs into the well and whisk with a fork to break them up and incorporate the yolks with the whites. Whisk in the olive oil.
Make the dough. With your fork, begin incorporating flour from the inside walls of the well, a little at a time. Continue to incorporate until the mixture is batter-thick, then a rough, sticky dough. Use a dough scraper to scrape up any shaggy bits from the work surface and to incorporate the flour into the eggs. Switch to your hands and begin kneading the dough into a rough ball.
Keep kneading. Knead until you have incorporated most, or all of the flour and the dough feels firm and bouncy, like a baby’s bottom! If it feels sticky, knead in a little more flour. If it feels dry, spritz a little water onto the dough and knead it in. Continue kneading for 5 to 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and firm. Form the dough into a tight ball and cover with plastic wrap or a bowl. Let it rest for 1 hour at room temperature.
Get ready to roll. Set up your pasta machine or mixer with the pasta attachment, making sure the pasta roller is at its widest setting (#1 on my hand-crank machine). Sprinkle a little flour on a cleared area around the machine or mixer. Sprinkle a clean rimmed baking sheet with flour.
Start stretching. Cut the ball of dough into 4 quarters and rewrap three. Knead the remaining piece briefly on the work surface. With a rolling pin or the heel of your hand, flatten the piece of dough into a thick oval 3 to 4 inches long. Feed the dough through the pasta machine and then lay it on the work surface. Fold the dough into thirds, as though you were folding a business letter; sprinkle lightly with flour and pass it through the rollers again. Repeat the folding and rolling process one or two more times to help set the rectangular shape of the dough.
Finish stretching. Move the roller setting to the next narrower notch and feed the strip of dough through the setting twice, sprinkling it with a little flour if needed to keep it from sticking. Continue to pass the dough through the rollers twice on each setting until you have stretched it to the desired thickness. For spaghetti or fettuccine, the sheet of dough should be between 1/8 and 1/16-inch thick—just thin enough to see the shadow of your hand through it. Set the sheet aside on a floured surface. Stretch the remaining three pieces of dough in the same way and set them aside on the floured surface.
Let the sheets dry briefly. They are ready to cut when they are still pliable and slightly moist but, but not too tacky. Don’t let them over-dry or they might crack when you cut them.
Cut your noodles. Once the pasta sheets are ready, run them, one at a time, through the cutter attachment of your pasta machine or mixer. Gently wrap the noodles around your hand to form a nest and place it on the floured baking sheet. If the sheets are too long to run comfortably through the cutters, cut them in half crosswise and run each half through separately. The noodles should be between 10 and 11 inches in length.
Cook and serve. Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat and salt it generously. Add the pasta and cook anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes, depending on thickness. Fresh pasta cooks quickly so take care not to overcook. Toss with your favorite sauce and serve.

Notes

Shop this recipe: Visit our shop to browse quality Mediterranean ingredients including the olive oil used in this recipe.
If you have a scale, use it to weigh your flour. Otherwise, lightly spoon the flour into the measuring cup until slightly mounded, then sweep off the excess with the flat side of a knife or a dough scraper.
If you don’t have a pasta cutter: Sprinkle the sheet liberally with semolina and roll loosely, cigar-style. Cut crosswise with a sharp knife into noodles.
To store homemade pasta for up to 1 month:
- Pop the baking sheet with pasta nests into the freezer and freeze until they are stiff.
- Once frozen, transfer the pasta to a container with a tight-fitting lid and place it in the freezer.
- To cook, transfer the pasta directly from the freezer to a pot of boiling water—no need to defrost it first; in fact, defrosting it will cause the noodles to stick together. Cook until al dente—it may take an extra minute or two to fully cook frozen pasta. Toss with sauce and serve.

Nutrition

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