Making Pasta, the Old World Way

I'm having some friends over for dinner and I've been really wanting to make fresh pasta with my pasta machine (also Scott says that I have to use all the stuff in the kitchen or that it needs to go so I'm using it!).

I used a recipe from Jamie Oliver (recipe listed at the end). It's simple and has few ingredients but let me tell you, making pasta is not easy work!



I started by mixing the dough with my hands but I'm thinking of using my mixer and the kneading utensils next time. I'm not sure if this is a poor decision or not but I'm willing to experiment.





Then I began to knead the bread until it was smooth and silky. The dough was hard to knead and took a lot of effort to make silky though!



Next you wrap the pasta in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to rest for bit.



I separated out the giant ball into four smaller balls and began running the dough through the pasta machine starting with setting one and then running the dough through again and increasing the settings up to 7. In between running the dough through the machine, I would fold and turn the dough.





Once the dough was thin enough, I then put it through the machine with the angel hair pasta attachment.



I draped the pasta over the back of a clean chair but one can always use a pasta drying rack too.





Ingredients

• 1 2/3 cup bread flour
• 1 2/3 cup semolina flour
• 3 large free range eggs
• 8 egg yolks

Directions

1. Place the flour on a clean surface.

2. Make a well in the center and add the eggs and yolks.

3. Use a fork to break up the eggs then start bringing in the flour.

4. Stir with the fork until you have dough which is easily workable with your hands.

5. Knead well until it becomes smooth, silky and elastic and the surface is clean.

6. Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for a while.

7. When you are ready to shape the pasta, break the dough into four pieces.

8. Take one ball at a time, flatten it with your hand and run it through the thickest setting on your pasta machine.

9. Fold in half and repeat this several times.

10. Start narrowing down the settings, dusting the dough with flour each time you run it through, stopping when the sheet is 1-2mm thick.

11. When you have a thin sheet, shape as desired.

12. To cook, drop the pasta into boiling water and cook just until al dente-- no more than five minutes and perhaps as little as two minutes, depending on the thickness of the pasta.

13. Store any extra in the fridge for up to half a day or you can dry it and store in airtight containers.