We Made Homemade Pasta, And We Liked It
Actually, that should say, we made homemade pasta and we LOVED it. Throughout the years I’ve always watched some TV chefs from various cooking shows say that homemade pastas are really good. I’ve read the same thought from various cookbooks as well. So I’ve always wanted to try making my own pasta except I didn’t have a pasta maker. I have a Kitchen Aid but I don’t have the pasta maker attachment. I supposed I could’ve used the rolling pin to flatten the dough but using a pasta maker just looks so much fun. Well, that’s all changed now coz my mother-in-law just gave me a stand-in pasta maker. It’s the Atlas Marcato 150 Pasta Maker, plus an extra attachment for pappardelle (lasagna) maker.
If you’ve noticed I said “WE made…” The original plan was for my daughter and I to make homemade spaghetti noodles. She got so excited when I was making the dough coz she thought I was making sugar cookies. I told her I was making spaghetti instead. Forget the cookies coz she got even more excited upon hearing her favorite pasta dish of all time, bear in mind that she’s only turning 6 in a few days. This girl could eat spaghetti for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner. Kinda like pizza, hah. Then I took the pasta maker out of the box, oh boy was she excited. But then I had to ruin the excitement by explaining that we have to wait for 30 minutes to let the dough rest. So she spent every 5 minutes checking up on me and the kitchen until I finally said we could start making the spaghetti noodles.
Continuing on to the “we” part, it turns out, making homemade pasta is a fun family affair. A messy one that is. Thank goodness Daddy woke up from his nap to help us out. I needed his help so badly, not just making the pasta but so I could somehow take pictures of the process to write about. I missed a couple of pictures because it was just too hard to do things all at once but hopefully I’ve covered most of the steps.
FYI, when you start making your own homemade pasta, make sure you have A LOT of flour. Not just for making the dough but also during the entire process of shaping the noodles. Flour is your bestfriend.
Homemade Pasta
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 4 eggs
- some water
- 2 tbsp olive oil (more if you prefer)
- pasta maker
- extra bowl of flour
Instructions
- In a clean flat surface, create a mountain-like shape from the flour. Make a hole in the middle. Put the eggs in the middle. Beat the eggs, then slowly mix the flour with the eggs. Use your hands to mix everything together. Soften the dough mixture with olive oil and a little bit of water. Keep kneading the dough until you’re able to form a ball. Sprinkle a little bit of water in between. Once you’ve formed a ball, put it in a container then cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or a saran wrap. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes. Start boiling a pot of water for the pasta.
- After the dough has rested, slice the dough in small pieces, slightly flatten with your hand. Then pass one piece of the dough into the pasta maker, starting with the widest opening (knob setting 1). Sprinkle flour on top of the flatten dough, fold in half then pass it through again the roller. Repeat this process several times, lightly sprinkle the sheet of dough before it passes the roller each time. Adjust the knob settings(all the way to 5) as you go along. If you don’t have a huge space, don’t hesitate to cut the sheet of dough before shaping the noodles. Generously sprinkle flour onto the spaghetti roller, and the platter where you’ll spread out the spaghetti noodles. A pasta drying rack would be nice to have for this part.
- Insert the sheet of pasta into the spaghetti roller, then crank up the roller. At this point, I was rolling the handle, and taking a picture while my husband held the pasta. Team Work!
- Onto a pot of boiling water, slowly drop the noodles to cook. In separate sauce pan, make your spaghetti sauce (browned ground beef, spaghetti sauce, 3 tbsp of sugar, sprinkles of salt, ground basil and ground oregano). Transfer the cooked pasta into the pasta sauce. Gently stir until combined.
Notes
VOILA, spaghetti using homemade pasta. Sprinkle shredded or grated Parmesan cheese.