Easy Homemade Pasta

Pasta is one of the most versatile dishes; from fettuccini alfredo to chicken parmesan, it only takes a few simple ingredients to make a delicious meal. While store-bought pasta can be an easier and quicker option to starting off your pasta dish, making homemade pasta is easy enough to be made on a weeknight instead of the dry, packaged version. The premade, fresh pasta you can buy at a store is also an upgrade from the dry boxed pasta, but this homemade version will revitalize the same taste of mass-produced pasta. With a few simple techniques, you can bring more flavor and texture to your pasta. I have frequently made homemade pasta at home, even at times when we have boxed pasta, because of the level of flavor and increase in taste the homemade version brings. Let's take a look at how to make the pasta:

Pasta is made from a dough consisting of flour, eggs, salt, and oil. You can use all-purpose, semolina, or 00 flour, and even a mixture of them. Semolina has a more robust taste, 00 and AP flour are lighter and stretchy. Knowing what kind of properties that your flour will result in is important if you are trying to achieve a certain taste, but you can generally use any type you have available. Start on a flat surface like a cutting board or a clean counter. Part of what makes homemade pasta fun is the transformation of the ingredients, so don't be afraid to get messy. On a cutting board, I put the flour in a small mound, and use the pointed side of an egg to create a well. This well will house our wet ingredients. Alternatively, you can put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it up with a fork, but the traditional pasta-making method utilized the flour well and you end up kneading on the work surface anyway. Inside the well, crack in your eggs, salt, and oil, making sure not to break the well. Now, taking your fork, start to break the egg yolks and stir in everything slowly inside the well. You want to begin to incorporate small amounts of the flour as you stir, again making sure not to break the well. By incorporating the flour slowly, you can have a cohesive dough without large chunks of flour inside.

When you are just starting out with making pasta, or on random occasions, the flour well will break open and the egg mixture will spill out. If there is only a small breach, I like to sprinkle some flour on the edge to seal it up and continue to mix. If there is a large spill and it begins to flow like Niagara Falls, you need to take action quickly. There is not any real danger to this, but the egg mixture will travel fast and can end up on the floor or on a surface you don't want to be contaminated with eggs. As the spill occurs, quickly add flour to the spill and begin to stir all the flour together with the egg mixture to quickly get everything together. This does not create any problems in the actual dough, but it is a better practice to slowly incorporate the flour.

With all the flour added to the egg mixture, whether done slowly or rapidly, it is time to knead the dough to make it cohesive and build gluten. Flour contains gluten forming proteins, so similarly to using yeast in pizza doughs, you can develop the gluten proteins by kneading. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes, making sure to fold the dough on itself. I have a more in-depth description of kneading in my pizza dough recipe. The dough is ready once you can poke the dough and it springs back at you. Wrap up the dough in plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for some time, ideally 30 minutes.

Once the dough has rested and comes soft, you are ready to make the pasta! In order to create different shapes and styles of pasta, you first need a flat sheet of dough. I have a pasta machine I bought off Amazin that works really well for me, including the rolls to make the thin sheet and two types of cuts to make the noodles. If you don't have a pasta machine, you can use a rolling pin to roll out the dough, but it will take some time and more effort. Section out the dough into four parts and cover-up three of the parts. Taking the section of dough, run it through the first level of the machine, or start rolling in one direction with a rolling pin. You want to roll out a rectangle, so as you are rolling out the dough, fold the dough into thirds and reroll to get a rectangle. The thickness of the pasta can vary depending on the shape and your preferences. I like to use the highest setting on my pasta machine to make the dough thin. From Tasty, I learned that the old way of telling the thickness was that you should be able to read a letter through the dough, so I generally just put my hand under the dough and see if it is beginning to becoming thinner. With the dough rolled out into a rectangular sheet, you now can customize the dough into a variety of shapes. With my pasta machine, there are two extra cutters to make different noodles, like fettuccine and angel hair. To cut noodles without the machine, lightly fold your sheet while sprinkling flour in between to make sure the noodles don't stick and use a sharp knife to cut out the noodles. When cutting the noodles, try not to squish the layers together, or the dough will stick together. To make some fancy shapes, take the sheet and cut out small rectangles using a knife and form little shapes. For a bowtie, I pinch the middle of the rectangle to get the fancy shape. While you make each section of the dough, dust the pasta shapes with flour to prevent them from sticking.

With all of the dough rolled out and shaped to your desire, it is time to boil the noodles. Dry pasta from the store usually takes 7-10 minutes to be cooked to al dente, but I was surprised to learn how fast fresh pasta cooks! As the water comes to a boil, sprinkle in salt, and then drop in the pasta, stirring around to make sure nothing sticks. In about 2-3 minutes, the pasta will be done and you can drain and serve with your favorite sauce. Here I used a homemade basil pesto to put on my pasta and served it with vegetables and salmon for a nice dinner with my family. For holding more of the sauce into your pasta, create shapes with grooves and dents to provide crevices for your favorite sauce. I love the experience of making pasta and it was one of the first dishes I learned to make, helping me develop skills in ooking. Now, after making the recipes numerous times, I know the recipe by heart and know the techniques to make the dough, recognizing when to adjust something and handling the pasta sheets as I roll out the dough; it has almost become muscle memory! Truly, pasta making is comfort of mine, being the catalyst of my interest and passion for culinary and pastry arts. It has shown me that with time and practice and dedication, I can build on a skill and make something special of my own. I hope you can try out this pasta recipe and learn about pasta making as well!