In its bear minimum pasta is a dough made with 00 flour, salt, olive oli, and eggs. However, it is much more than that. It is a way to connect to people who are thousands of miles away from us. It is a way for us to show people love and appreciation. Making pasta takes time and energy, but once done right it can be the best thing ever.
Ingredients:
- 100 grams of 00 or all purpose flour (00 is recomended since it is a finer grind and will make for a better texture in the end)
- One teaspoon of salt
- One table spoon of olive oil
- One egg
Method:
Dump the flour on to a work surface and make a well. Add the salt, crack the egg, and add the olive oil inside the well of flour. Make sure the walls of the flour are high enough so the egg does not spill out. Inside the well whisk the egg and slowly incorperate the flour from the insde walls of the well. Once the egg mixutre is thick with the flour and cannot be whisked with the fork, switch to a bench scraper. Then incorporate the flour from the outside of the well almost chopping it into the egg mixute. After doing this the dough should be crumbly and dry. This will seem like not enought liquid to make the dough, but do not add more liquid at this stage. Once the dough is dry and crumbly knead it for 10 minutes. If the dough still does not come together add water one tablespoon at a time till the dough is nice and smooth. Though most of the time adding water will not be necessary. Once kneaded for 10 minutes cover the dough in plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes. This step will relax the gluten so it is easier to roll the dough later on. During the resting process we will also set up the pasta roller and cutter.
Once the dough is rested feed it throught the pasta roller on it's widest setting. The dough should now be elongated. Now fold the dough in thirds like a letter and feed it throught the pasta machine again on the same setting. The folding of the dough is known as laminating. Keep rolling the dough by feeding it through the pasta roller once on each setting; making it gradually thinner. During this process you should keep flouring the sheet of pasta as you think it is getting sticky. Now the pasta sheet should be very thin. Cut the long sheet into segments which are 9 inches long. Then feed each segment throught the pasta cutter making individual noodles of pasta. Repeat this process for all the 9 inch segments of pasta. Now finally we have fresh home made pasta.
For more details see Joshua Weissman's video on fresh pasta .
This is one of my favorite pasta dishes called Pasta Aglio e Olio.