Homemade Pasta

I’ve been cooking pasta for years.  I’ve scorched it.  Left it nearly raw.  Turned it into mush.  But mostly I’ve cooked it just fine.  It got a lot easier a couple of years back when Mrs. CB gave me my very own ‘sketti pot for Christmas.  I thought it was my “major gift” that year but she assures me that it wasn’t—it was something electronic—but I’ve been using that big old pot from WalMart ever since.

So, I finally figured it was time to try something different.  Something I’ve seen done a whole bunch of times on cooking shows like “The Chew”, “Top Chef”, “Iron Chef” and others.  Let’s make spaghetti/pasta from scratch.  I always thought that you needed a “pasta maker” to do it.  But, I’ve seen chefs like Mario Batali do it and roll out the pasta on a bread board then cut it with a pizza cutter.  (This is a variation on Mario Batali’s basic recipe).

And the results are really, really good.  The only thing I need to do next time is a better job of working the flour down into the egg volcano and get a better mix going AND roll the dough out thinner on my bread board.

This had tooth.  Plump strands of pasta coated in Bolognese sauce.  So I had a sauce that had some oomph to it and pasta to match.  Give it a try yourself.  You’ve got the ingredients on hand—flour and eggs.  You’ll be amazed at the results.

You don’t need a pasta machine.  You can make this by hand and roll it out.  It’s even more rustic that way too.

Homemade Handmade Pasta

• 3 cups all-purpose flour—plus ½ cup for “work surface”
• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:
1. Get out your pasta board if you have one or prep a counter surface if that’s where you work with dough.  Get out your flour, bench scraper, small bowl, fork, pizza cutter and plastic wrap.
2. Put 3 cups flour in a 8-10 inch-wide mound on a work surface. Make a well in center (down to work surface) with fist. (The outer wall should be 1 1/2 to 2 inches high.)  This is the volcano.
3. Break eggs into a small bowl and add the oil. Beat eggs and oil together with a fork.
4. Gently pour egg mixture into the “crater” then gradually blend in flour from inner side of well wall. Try to keep the wall intact while mixture is runny, until it comes together in a cohesive mass.  Most but not all of the flour from mound will be incorporated.
5. (You can use a fork to do this or even a small whisk.  But, I generally work my dough for bread and biscuits, etc. with my fingers and hands and this is what I did with the pasta too.)
6. The dough should be just a bit tacky.  Knead dough with floured hands, incorporating just enough flour on work surface until dough no longer sticks to hands.
7. Set dough aside and scrape up and discard flour from work surface
8. Lightly reflour work surface using some of remaining flour and continue to knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 5 or 6 minutes more. (Dough should still a tiny bit tacky.)
9. Form dough into a thick disk, then dust well with flour and wrap in plastic wrap. Let dough rest 30 minutes at room temperature.
10. Rolling out the Pasta:
11. Here’s where the arm work out comes in.
12. Unwrap the dough from the plastic wrap.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the change in texture. Put a bit of flour in the palm of your hand and rub your hands together to get a coating.  Pick up the disk and rub it lightly. 
13. Cut the dough in half then re-wrap the other half in the plastic.
14. Prep a flat pan of some sort—I used a plastic 12 x 2” pan.  Prep it by dusting it lightly with flour.
15. Lightly dust your work surface with a little bit of all-purpose flour.  Put the dough on your surface and begin to roll the dough out.  Flip and twist the dough on the counter top to make sure that it’s not sticking.  If spots are sticking, lift the dough and lightly dust the surface with flour and continue rolling.
16. I used my French rolling pin for this and it was a bit of work.  Next time I think I’ll dig out my old fashioned maple pin with the handles on the end to see if I can roll the dough out a bit more quickly and thinner.
17. The thinner you roll the dough the better.  Shoot for about the thickness you do pie crust or about 1/8 inch a the thickest—thinner if possible.  Think translucent.
18. Now, take a pizza cutter and cut strips to your desired thickness.  You can make it as thin or as wide as you want as long as you have a steady hand and eye and don’t try to go too fast or (as, I found out, too slow either).  I was shooting for between 1/8 and ¼ inch and didn’t do too bad.  You could even make your own lasagna noodles too.
19. Once you’ve cut your pasta, cut it in half so it’s a bit more manageable, especially if it’s a bit wide.  Sprinkle a bit of flour on it then lift it and shake it off.  Lay it in the plastic dish you prepped earlier.  Loosely cover it with plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out while you do the 2nd half of the pasta.
20. When you’ve got the 2nd half done you’re going to be ready to cook your pasta.  (By the way if you’ve got a couple of hours to wait before cooking it, just leave it covered with plastic wrap in it’s dish for a while).
21. Cooking:
22. Get out your pasta pot and fill it about 2/3 with water.  Put it on the stove to boil and add a couple of teaspoons of salt.  When it’s a good rolling boil add the pasta.
23. Here’s where it gets fun.  Cook the pasta until it’s al dente.  That means you get to sample it a couple of times while it cooks.
24. When it’s the right doneness, remove from the stove and drain.  Do NOT rinse.  You can drizzle it with a tablespoon of olive oil if you want.
25. It’s now done and ready to serve!  Enjoy.

(Print version available at the bottom of the post)

I made this for the first time to go with homemade Bolognese sauce.  And the combination was fantastic.  This pasta was more flavorful and had a better tooth than regular dried pasta.  It was a treat and married incredibly with the beefy flavor of the Bolognese.

Here’s the link to Cheap Bastid’s Bolognese Sauce recipe:  http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/bolognese-sauce/

Would I do this all the time?  No.  But it’s great to know just how easy this was.  I made a couple of mistakes but in the end all I could say is “It’s all good”.

I got my dough just a bit too dry on this first effort.  I was able to “salvage” it by using my spray oil to spray each side of the dough disk and then knead it just a bit more—I even broke it to roll it back up.  I had to spray a couple of time to get the moisture where I thought it needed to be.

I was just a bit apprehensive when I opened up the plastic wrap on the dough after letting it rest.  The change was really cool.  The texture had changed as the dough rested and the strands of gluten formed.  That’s when I started to get excited and confident that I could indeed make handmade pasta.

Yeah, I’ll be doing this more often.  There’s just something about making good things to eat out of flour and water or flour and eggs.  It’s magic and the results are always tasty.  Kind of like Forrest Gump saying “life is like a box of chocolates”.  You never know what you’re going to get…but you know it’s going to be good.

The Cheap Bastid Test:  Well 3 cups of flour costs $.25 and 4 eggs cost about $.75.  That’s it.  A buck.  This will feed 4.  It fed the 2 us dinner with belly stretching 2nds and provided 3 lunches. Dried pasta costs about $1 for a pound.  Yeah, this takes a bit longer.  But the flavor is incredible and the satisfaction of knowing you made it yourself is even better.

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way:  Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!