Jill Can Cook: Pasta Dough

I've been wanting to get a pasta rolling machine for about a year now. I've gotten as far as pricing them online, but I knew I wouldn't really get the chance to enjoy it until recently, because my son is into everything and cannot be trusted on his own for 5 seconds at a time. But he's getting better.

 

So, I got one from Joe for Valentine's Day.

Technically.

I mean, he had every intention of getting me one but wasn't sure which kind or brand or even where to find one. So, I bought myself one for $19.99 at The Christmas Tree Shop and thanked Joe for getting it for me. Lol. 

 

Joe was very pleased that "he" got such a good deal on it.

Dork.

Anyway, I couldn't wait to get it together (SOOOO easy to do!!!!!!!) and find a recipe (also so easy; just a couple of ingredients!!). Quinn also couldn't wait to get in on it and help. So, here are our adventures in Pasta making. Oh and here's the recipe we used: The Restless Chipotle.

* A little footnote: I actually made this pasta dough and took all these pictures about a week after Valentine's Day! Talk about dropping the ball, I totally did on this post!

 

The Best Homemade Pasta Dough Ever

 

Ingredients

 

• 3½ cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• About 4 to 5 tablespoons of water (give or take)

Instructions

1. Blend the flour and salt together.
2. Add the eggs, oil and half of the water.
3. Mix slowly, adding more water as needed until the dough can be formed into a ball that holds together. don't let it get too wet or it will be hard to work with.
4. Knead for about three minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
5. Cover with a clean tea towel and allow to rest for thirty minutes.
6. Divide the dough into 4 parts.
7. Roll each part out on a lightly floured board so that it will fit through the #1 setting on your pasta maker.
8. If you are rolling by hand just roll each piece of dough out until it is as thin as you can get it and cut into the desired sizes.
9. Rub a light coating of flour on the dough.
10. Put the dough through the #1 setting about 5 times or more.
11. Change to a #2 setting and put the dough through that setting two or three times.
12. Change to a #3 setting and put the dough through that setting.
13. Continue to make the dough thinner until it is as thin as you want it.
14. Cut into desired shapes and allow to rest for a few minutes more.
15. Place in salted, rapidly boiling water and cook until done - 2 or 3 minutes.

Notes

You can use whole wheat flour, semolina flour, or a combination if you like.
You can substitute vegetable puree for the water.
I'd suggest following the recipe exactly before trying any variations.

I was pleased to see there wasn't that much to do to get this puppy working!

That's a pretty large recipe, so I cut it in half, so I didn't end up with an insane amount of noodles! I also didn't take any pictures of the ingredients in the bowl because immediately, I ended up with this:

Doesn't look like much but it made a fairly decent amount of noodles.

And it wasn't until I started rolling the dough out that Quinn wanted to join in. I keep the kids gated out of the kitchen so when she started yelling, "Can I please jump?" I knew picking her up over the gate and into the kitchen would mean having a little talking shadow during the rest of this!

I rolled out this awesome circle shape.

Then cut it into quarters.

For the next step, I figured I'd let Quinn help. I put the dough into the pasta roller and let her crank the arm. She was in kid heaven!

You can tell she loves it by her creepy little smile.

This is one quarter all rolled out. You can see how we ended up with so many noodles!

We made some into skinny noodles and some into thicker noodles.

The thick ones photographed better.

I ended up with a couple mangled noodles that didn't separate  enough, so I put them to the side. Then I put the rest of the noodles into some boiling water.

When I turned around, Quinn was playing with the leftover pasta dough I had set aside:

I love how she looks so serious! P.S. This kept her busy for the next hour or so!

The great thing about the noodles is that they didn't take too long to cook. The not-so-awesome thing about the noodles is that I didn't have any kind of sauce or dressing available. I hoped the kids would eat them with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper on them.

How could they resist these delicious looking homemade noodles?!

The kids ate them. I ate them. I saved some for Joe in the fridge, but he never ate them for whatever reason. I don't remember since it was about 4 months ago.

Not bad looking noodles!

Although I liked the noodles, they were a little salty. I am not much of a salt person (which is weird since I LOVE ramen noodles and those are super salty). I think the recipe would be a whole lot better with half as much salt. Still, I give it an A.

I mainly wanted a pasta roller because I wanted to make ravioli and tortellini. I've owned the pasta roller for about 4 months and still haven't made the two things I've been dying to make on it! I've got to kick my butt back into gear! I hate that I've turned into a bit of a blob over the winter. Lucky for all of us around here, though, that we're getting nice weather!