Speaking of Pasta

Kristie responded to my last post (about pasta), asking if I had a special recipe that works. I’ve tried a couple of different recipes in the past; this time I used a recipe I found on Food.com (one of my favourite sites for finding recipes, incidentally).

I consider this one a keeper. I like the texture of it; I could have rolled it out a little thinner as the noodles puffed up quite a bit on cooking. The noodles have some “tooth” to them, a little chewy (perhaps a touch undercooked?) and have some body to them. It is definitely a recipe I’ll be making again, perhaps even today. That first batch has already been consumed.

We had company the night I made the pasta. They had, apparently, been eating off and on all day (they were in town for a granddaughter’s birthday party and Thanksgiving) but we hadn’t. John made a nice light tomato sauce with garden fresh tomatoes, sweet onions, fresh garlic and some of the last basil leaves from the garden. I cooked the pasta and served it with parmesan cheese and warmed homemade dinner buns and butter, served with a choice of red or white wine (I drink white). It was a lovely light meal and everyone agreed that the pasta was excellent.

Without further ado, here’s the recipe:

Homemade Pasta Dough

• 2 cups white flour
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 tablespoons warm water

Place flour in a large glass bowl and form a well in the middle. Add remaining ingredients into the well. With a fork, in a circular motion, stir wet ingredients just around rim of dry ingredients, bringing a little bit of flour into the wet, a little at a time until all are mixed together.

Pour mixture onto a floured board and knead until tight and glossy. It should be difficult to mix, to a point where no more flour will stay into mixture. Form into a ball and let it sit, covered, for 1/2 – 1 hour.

Cut into manageable pieces to fit into pasta machine. Flour pieces as needed; if dough is too sticky it will not go through the pasta machine smoothly.

Run three times through larger slot size, then once through decreasing sizes progressively until desired thickness. Run through pasta cutter of choice and dry overnight. Store dried pasta in sealed bags or containers.

The original recipe, from Food.com, can be found here: Homemade Pasta Dough.