Pasta Dough

Making your own fresh pasta gives you a win on so many levels. Not only does freshly made pasta taste infinitely superior to dried, and even vacuum packed 'fresh', pasta but it is considerably lighter too. You don't get that heavy feeling in the stomach that makes you want to go for a nap! The other positive is that it is a therapeutic calming experience. Maybe I am just odd but I enjoy the kneading experience! The key to making your own pasta is to have many attempts at it as each time it will take less time and produce a better result. Before you know it you will be an artisan pasta maker!

Ingredients

• Pasta flour (preferably)/00 plain flour - you need as much as you need.
• 2 eggs

This should give you approximately 350g of pasta

My flour of choice

Method 

There is a wealth of information about making pasta on the internet. I am sure everyone has an opinion and that there is a multitude of old school Italian pasta makers spinning in their collective graves over some of the methods suggested.

I do it this way...

Put 115g of flour in a bowl and make a well in the middle. Crack two eggs into the well and whisk them with a fork until the yolk and white are combined. Once combined start to draw in some of the flour from the edge into the egg mix. Carry on mixing until that flour is incorporated then draw a little more in. Repeat this process until all the flower is mixed in. 

Now assess the mixture; if it is still very wet add a little more flour (maybe a tablespoon at a time) and mix it in until you feel that you have a mixture that you can start to manipulate with your hands without getting into a sticky mess! Now abandon the fork and bowl turning the mixture out onto a clean work surface,  Add a little more flour (I put the flour on the work surface and then sit the top and bottom of the dough mixture in it so that it is lightly covered) and then fold the top over on itself with a squashing slight stretching motion. Rotate 90° and fold the top over again.. repeat until that addition of flour is incorporated. Then add more flour. Repeat the folding/rotating action with extra flour until the dough has achieved a very smooth texture. There should be no lumps, bits or lose flour.  It should not really feel sticky at all now. 

Smooth as a baby's bottom as they say...

This could take ten or fifteen minutes and take quite a lot more flour. You can't be particularly specific on the amount of flour as it is all about the size of  the eggs and the absorbency of the type of flour you have. A lot of recipes state that you will be able to put your thumb into the mixture then withdraw it without there being any dough stuck to your hand. You tend to know when it is ready though as it will look right. It's all about getting experienced in making the dough.

Now you have dough ready to make pasta noodles or sheets.