Description
This simple formula will allow you to prepare homemade pasta for one to dozens. Tender, delicious homemade noodles are easy to make and really stretch food dollars by making a dish more filling.
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 egg per person/portion being served (I used 8 eggs [394 grams].)
- flour at 1.5 times the amount/weight of the eggs (I used 591 grams.)
Instructions
- Set the tare function on your kitchen scale and measure the weight (in grams) of the number of eggs you will be using.
- Multiply the weight of the eggs by 1.5 and then measure out that weight of flour.
- Stir the flour and eggs together until they begin to form a shaggy mass.
- Once it has come together, into that shaggy mass, pour everything out onto a lightly floured work surface or counter top.
- Knead the dough, pressing it with the heel of your hand, folding it over, kneading, fold until it is velvety smooth. This will take around 5-10 minutes.
- Cover (I just set a bowl over the top, right there on the counter.) and allow to rest for about 20 minutes. The resting period is important, so the gluten can relax and the homemade noodles will be easy to roll.
- After the rest period, roll and cut the homemade pasta dough. SEE NOTES.
- Homemade pasta can be added to boiling liquid and cooked immediately after cutting. Fresh pasta cooks in about half the time as dried, so be sure to check it earlier than you do pre-packaged dried varieties. Always season plain boiling water with abundant amounts of salt to boil pasta. A drop of the water on the tongue should taste salty or like broth for noodles to be properly seasoned. Alternatively, homemade pasta can be cooked in stock, instead of water, for additional flavor.
- Homemade pasta can also be left to dry on the counter and then frozen to store for later. Leave it to dry on the counter for several hours. I usually leave mine overnight, especially if the homemade noodles are thick. The important factor is that the noodles be completely dry all the way through. You want them to snap, not bend. Freeze the dried pasta in a zip-top bag for up to three months.
Notes
- You can flour the counter top and use a rolling pin to roll out the noodle dough. Roll it to your desired thickness. The rolled dough can then be cut with a sharp knife, though I feel a pizza wheel makes this job so much easier.
- My personal preferred method is to use a *pasta machine to roll and cut the homemade pasta. I am able to roll the dough much thinner and the noodles can quickly be cut to uniform widths.
- Both methods work, so if you don’t have a pasta machine don’t allow that to prevent you from making homemade pasta. I have made this recipe for decades using the rolling pin and pizza wheel method. Now, that I have a pasta machine, I just prefer that method.
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Pasta, Side Dish
- Method: Boiling
- Cuisine: American