Making fresh pasta is ridiculously easy as long as you have a machine where you can roll out dough and cut the sheets. You just need time and patience. Fresh cut pasta can keep in the freezer for a while (but why would you store it if you could…eat it) or the fridge for like 5 days.
This is what you do:
Weigh out 200 grams of semolina flour (you can find it at whole foods or pcc, or the organic section of conventional supermarkets strangely enough)
Weigh out another 200 of all purpose or better yet farina “00”
– Mix the flours in a bowl with a pinch of salt.
– Make a mound on the counter top.
– Poke a volcano hole in the top that would fit 4 small-medium eggs.
– Fork over flour little by little until you’ve covered the entire egg blob with flour, carefully attempting to not let the egg spill over.
Then have at it! Maul that sucker into a ball, making sure every grain of flour is absorbed by the egg liquid. Put your palm into it, treat it as if your forming a dough ball. Bread bakers, you should be pros at making a pasta ball. You should knead your pasta ball into submission aka a very clean, uniform ball until it is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. It should have the consistency of smooth play-doh. If it crumbles or refused to become consistent- add a little bit of water until it lets you maul it into a play-doh ball.
Let your pasta dough ball rest covered in plastic cling wrap for about half an hour. Fridge or no fridge.
When you are ready to roll your dough, cut off wedges from the ball (see video for a vague example)
Instructions for rolling out pasta with a machine
Smash your wedge to simulate a sort of stuffed circular pastry, flat enough so it can fit through the pasta machine’s widest setting. Flatten and roll dough through 1st setting (there should be either 0-8 or 1-8) and feed through the flattening attachment. Fold. Run through 1st setting again. Fold again. Run through 1st setting again. Fold again. Now before you run through, stop. Bump up your setting to #2. Run through folded dough. Run again. Now bump the dial up to #3 and roll through sheet once for each numbered setting (once for #3, once for #4, etc) bump up dial after until you reach sheet thickness of your liking. I personally like flattening until #6 or #8 depending on the machine. Try to dust each sheet of pasta with some flour so it doesn’t stick or tear as you move up the dials.
With your finished sheets- make the pasta of your choice: ravioli, tagliatelle (like in the vid), taglierini or use the sheets to make lasagna. let the pasta sheets dry out for a few minutes if you are going to use them for cut pasta unlike ravioli which needs to be filled and sealed almost immediately.
Questions? Leave them and I will answer.
Curious Appetite
Want to take a Pasta making class in Italy? Contact me. I lead culinary tours and assist with cooking classes in Florence and Tuscany.