Description
Making homemade pasta is lots of fun and the final taste is worth the extra work put into making pasta from scratch. This is a versatile pasta recipe traditionally made with a mixture of semolina and all purpose flour. This recipe also works using just all purpose flour or a mix of all purpose and whole wheat flour. You can make your preferred type of pasta with this recipe, my personal favorite is pappardelle.
Ingredients
- 2 cups semolina flour (or all purpose flour or whole wheat flour)
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
Instructions
- Mix: in a large bowl or clean board, stir together the flour and salt. Make a hole in the center of the flour mixture. Slowly pour ½ cup of the water into the flour mixture, while mixing quickly with a fork. Continue pouring the additional ½ cup of water into the dough until the pasta dough is wet enough to come together into a stiff dough. Add more water, by the tablespoon, if the dough seems too dry (I used the entire 1¼ cups of water).
- Knead: Combine the dough into a ball. Place the dough ball onto a lightly floured surface. To knead the dough, push the dough away from you using the heel of your hand. Fold the dough and turn it. Push, fold and turn the dough for 10 to 15 minutes until it is stiff, smooth and elastic. Pat the dough into a ball.
- Cover the dough ball and leave it to rest for 20-30 minutes.
- Roll and cut: Lightly flour your counter where you will be rolling out the dough. Cut the dough into 4 pieces. Work with a 1/4 of the dough at a time. Cover three pieces of the dough and roll out one piece of the dough using a rolling pin or with a pasta machine. Roll out the dough until your reach your desired thickness (about 1/16th of an inch thick). If you are using a pasta machine, roll the dough out to the third last setting. You may have to fold and refold the dough as you are rolling it, to get a long, uniform and elastic piece of dough.
- Cut the pasta dough into your preferred width and shape. If you have a pasta maker attachment you can make rigatoni, fusilli and other pasta shapes at home. Cut the dough into 3/4 inch strips to make parpadelle pasta and ¼ inch thick strips to make fettuccine. If you have a pasta maker, run the pasta through the fettuccine attachment to make fettuccine.
- Dust the pasta with flour. Leave the pasta to air dry for 15 minutes on a lightly floured baking sheet/counter top (or in a pasta dryer – see photo). This helps the pasta to not clump together while cooking.
- Cook: Cook fresh noodles in boiling salted water for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain and serve with your favorite pasta sauce.
Notes
1) The salt is a very important part of this recipe – do not leave it out. It helps with the elasticity of the pasta dough and makes a big difference to the final result.
2) The ends of your dough (“pasta scraps) make a great addition to soup. Toss the pasta scraps in a bit of flour and freeze them to use later.
3) To freeze the pasta, dust the freshly cut dough with flour, leave it to dry for 15 minutes and transfer to a large ziploc bag OR lay the pasta out on a lined baking sheet with parchment paper and cover to store flat in the freezer.
- Prep Time: 80 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Category: Main