Kate Johnson: Fresh pasta (recipe)

Making your pasta from scratch is delicious and satisfying. Machines can produce simple cuts like lasagna and spaghetti or even die cut pastas like macaroni, rotini and spirals, but you can also simply make the dough, roll it out and cut it yourself!

I currently have a Kitchen-Aid attachment which works very nicely and is easy to clean. It does a nice job keeping things consistent. You will find many recipes for pasta on the internet or on the back of pasta flour packages. As far as I am concerned, they are all fine – the key is simply getting to know the “feel” of pasta dough and this just takes a bit of experience.

I will add that I have never made a pasta that I did not think tasted great! Some of my early results were not as pretty as I would have liked – once I even ended up having to take a dough that was not cooperating with my machine and rolled little pellets off of a fork.

In the end, I boiled them up, put a sauce on them and they were delicious! Moral of the story – do not give up if you do not do it perfectly the first try… it will still taste wonderful and the next time you will have more experience to help create the perfect result!

Today I will share a basic recipe for pasta. I personally prefer using a mix of all-purpose and semolina flours (a higher protein content flour that results in a pasta that holds it shape well) and, because I have chickens, fresh eggs, but keep in mind if you prefer using just regular, whole wheat, or gluten-free flour or even adding other things like spinach or beet flavor, it is easy to find a recipe to meet your personal preferences.

Likewise, if you are vegan, there are plenty of non-egg recipes out there for you to use. The day that I made the pasta in the photo I had some filling that was in my freezer from the last batch of raviolis I had made.

Since there was only so much filling remaining, I cut the remaining sheets of pasta into spaghetti. When making raviolis it can be nice to make the filling a day ahead breaking up the work. If you make a big batch, you can then freeze the remainder and pull it out down the road for a quick and elegant meal.

Likewise, you can take your fresh spaghetti and let it dry a little, then simply roll it up in a little “nest” and place it on a sheet in the freezer. After it is frozen, you can transfer to a bag and now you have some “fresh” pasta to pull out for a quick week-night dinner. Enjoy!

Homemade semolina and egg pasta dough

Ingredients

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup semolina flour

2 whole eggs

1 egg yolk

1⁄2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Directions

Making the dough: Mix flours and make a well in the center and add the salt, two eggs and yolk.

Whisk the eggs with a fork. Once they're mixed, slowly move the fork outward to catch flour and start blending it in.

Once all has been combined, start working it into a dough with your hands. It will be crumbly at first. Knead for 5-10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic – add small amounts of flour or water if needed. Cover dough with plastic and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Rolling and cutting the dough: Divide the rested dough into four wedges (I use my kitchen scale to keep things consistent). Cover all but one.

On a lightly floured surface shape one wedge into a rectangle and begin to roll it out with a floured rolling pin or put it through your roller on the widest setting three times.

Once it's a long rectangle, fold it up like a letter and turn it sideways so the smooth edges are on the sides and repeat.

Continue to roll or feed through your pasta machine (dialing the width down every three rolls) until it is the thickness you desire. Keep the surface lightly floured.

When the pasta is your ideal thinness, then either run it through the cutting attachment on your pasta machine or use a knife. For noodles, flour the dough generously and gently fold up before slicing noodles. For lasagna, simply slice the sheets into desired lengths.

Cooking the pasta: Bring a pot of generously salted water to a rapid boil. Drop in the pasta and cook for 90 seconds to 3 minutes, checking early for doneness.

Toss with sauce as desired. There is NO need to cook noodles first if making lasagna.

Drying/storing pasta: To dry it, flour the noodles very generously to prevent sticking and coil into nests on a baking sheet OR hang from a drying rack. Once completely dry, store in an airtight container for up to six months.

To freeze, generously flour and shape into nests then freeze on a baking sheet. Once frozen transfer to a storage bag or container in the freezer for up to two months. You can also store dough or cut noodles (well-floured!) in the fridge for up to two days.

Kate Johnson is a long-time resident of Carson City. She is an avid gardener, cook, musician and lover of dogs.