Perfect Handmade Pasta

Homemade pasta is something that takes a few times to get right, but once you get it down it is amazing! It is all about the dough coming together right and being able to roll it out thin enough to make the perfect noodles. You can make good pasta without a pasta roller, but it makes it a lot easier and a lot better if you have the roller and cutter to help. Once the noodles are made, they cook up in a couple minutes and they taste better than anything you’ll find at most restaurants. I love to pair them with a homemade roasted red pepper sauce and turkey meatballs, but it will elevate any store bought sauce or a simple olive oil, salt and pepper and Parmesan mixture ala cacio e pepe.

The best pasta dough is very simple. You only need a few ingredients, so it is about kneading it enough for the flour to soak up all the olive oil and eggs, only using water when you need a little extra moisture. Once the dough is put together, let it sit for at least 30 minutes and it will roll out better and go through the cutting stage really easily.

Once you get a plain pasta mastered, you can add different flavorings like dried herbs, seasonings, or even fresh basil.

For the Pasta:

• All purpose flour … 2 cups
• Eggs … 2
• Olive Oil … appx 2 tbsp
• Salt … ½ tbsp
• Water … just a splash as needed

To make the pasta:

1. In a mixing bowl, add flour and salt to the bottom of the bowl and work out any lumps with a fork.
2. Make a hole in the flour and add two eggs.
3. Drizzle olive oil over the eggs and flour.
4. Whisk eggs together and slowly work in surrounding flour.
5. Combine until the eggs, oil and flour are crumbly.
6. Add a small amount of water and olive oil and continue working into a ball.
7. Knead dough for a few minutes until it forms into a ball.
8. Leave it in the bowl and cover with plastic for 10 min.
9. PASTA TRICK: Pat the ball of dough into a disk, about 1.5 inches thick and tightly wrap with plastic. The disk gives more surface area to  the dough and it sets up faster.
10. Let the disk of dough set for up to an hour, the longer it sets, the better the dough with roll out and cut into noodles.
11. Set up pasta roller onto counter and sprinkle with flour.
12. Cut the disk into three sections and flatten out with fingers before putting in roller.
13. Run section of the dough through pasta roller at a ticker setting to smooth it out then again through the thinnest setting.
14. After pasta is rolled through thin setting, run it through the pasta cutting section.
15. Be sure to catch the noodles coming through and sprinkle with flour so they don’t stick together
16. TRICK: Use a wire hanger to hang fresh pasta on so it doesn’t stick together.
17. Continue rolling and cutting pasta until all the dough is now pasta.
18. Cook it boiling water for about 2 minutes.

This is the base to the best dinner ever that I will be posting tomorrow!