How to Make Your Own Pasta

Pasta is one of those foods that most people just don't think about. Boil some water, open a package of spaghetti, and toss it in the pot. What could be easier? It's a fast, cheap, versatile meal, and it's relatively foolproof. So what would make you reconsider? How about knowing that you can easily make your own pasta with only a small increase in time and labor? How about knowing that homemade pasta is cheaper, and tastes better than store bought? Are you interested yet? If so, read on.

Your main tool for making your own pasta is....a pasta machine! Surprise, surprise. A manual one will do the trick quite well. Look for one that is solidly constructed with a nice sturdy hand crank. You'll also need a good mixer for making your pasta dough. Once you have those two things, you're set. The main ingredient in pasta dough is semolina flour. In fact, in the pasta recipe I use, semolina flour is the only ingredient!

Here's how it goes:
In a large mixing bowl, put 2 ¾ cup of semolina flour. Add 1 cup of water or other liquid (more on this later). Mix them together until they're well incorporated (this is where the good quality mixer comes in). The mixture should feel wet enough to hold together, but not sticky. Separate the dough into baseball-sized lumps and wrap them individually in plastic wrap. Wrap them well- any part that is exposed to the air will dry out. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. This dough will keep for at least a week, so my usual method is to make up a batch at the beginning of the week and use whatever I need for each meal.

Once your dough has been in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, get out your pasta machine and get ready to make your pasta. In general, I can roll out a batch of pasta in about the same amount of time that it takes to boil a pot of water. For your first try, expect it to take a bit longer. Attach the pasta machine to your workspace, and spread all-purpose flour out on the counter. Don't cheat on this one- use white flour. Unwrap your pasta dough, and use your hand to flatten it down onto the flour. Flip it over, and do the same on the other side. Try to get it as flat as you can with your hands before putting it through the machine. Start with your pasta machine on the thickest setting. Roll your pasta dough through. The first time will be difficult. If or when it comes out in little pieces, smash them back together and roll it through again. When it comes out as a sheet that holds together fairly well, fold it into thirds, turn it 90 degrees, and roll it through again. It will probably take 3-5 times through on the first setting. Keep folding and rolling flour into your dough- this dough can take a lot of flour, and it's highly unlikely that you will make it too dry. When you have a fairly uniform sheet of dough going through your pasta maker, move to the second setting and run the dough through once without folding. Continue, using a thinner setting each time. For fettuccine noodles go to about the 4^th setting. For spaghetti noodles, go to the 6^th setting. Spaghetti noodles are more difficult to work with, so I don't recommend them on the first try. If your dough gets so long that it becomes difficult to work with, just cut it in half and run each half through the machine separately. Once you've reached the desired thickness, use the cutting blade to start making your noodles. If they don't separate easily when they come through the machine, then your dough is too wet. You can either pull the noodles apart by hand before cooking them, or run the dough through the press a few more times with flour dusted on the dough each time. When you get the right consistency, they should come through the cutting blade as individual noodles. Use scissors to cut them to the length that you want, and add them to your boiling water. The flour will make the water want to boil over, so keep a close eye on it. Cook the pasta for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally, then drain it, add your sauce, and enjoy!
To clean your pasta machine, brush it off, then turn it upside down and shake as much dough out of it as you can. You can also use a stiff brush to clean it out. Whatever you do, don't immerse the machine in water. One of the advantages of using a dough that is only semolina flour and water is that you don't have to worry about getting every crumb out of the machine.

Here are a few more tips for making the process easier:
When you put your water on to boil, put a lid on the pot and tip it so only a little bit of steam can escape. This will keep the humidity in your kitchen down and help keep the pasta dough from sticking together.

Add oil to your water before putting the pasta in. This will help keep it from sticking together while it cooks.
Once you know what good pasta dough feels like you can vary the recipe (and add nutritional value) by using juice from tomatoes, carrots, or spinach. To make spinach water put a bunch in your blender with a few tablespoons of water and puree until it turns into a liquid. This will make a slightly wetter dough, so you'll want to add about 1/8 cup more semolina flour just so that it holds together. When you roll vegetable pasta out, be prepared to mix a good amount of flour into your dough.

That's really all there is to it. If you've ever worked with bread dough, then pasta is easy. Even if you haven't baked bread before, pasta is still easy to make once you master the basic technique. The only downfall is that once you've tasted homemade pasta, you'll never want to go back to store bought.