Store bought products couldn’t be easier. But if you want something really special that honestly doesn’t require too much effort or time, try making homemade pasta. A hand crank pasta maker will cost about $35.00 and lasts forever. You can roll the dough by hand but the machine makes it even and offers various widths for making linguini and spaghetti. Semolina flour and all purpose white flour blended together will make a dough that has the right structure and will produce a really nice pasta that will hold up well. Again, Semolina is very easy to find and is available in just about all stores these days. I’m a big fan of Bob’s Red Mill and King Arthur products but feel if you really want a finer product to try an small local mill such as Aurora Mills and Farm.
pasta
3-4 servings
Ingredients
3/4 cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 cup Semolina Flour
2 Eggs
Instructions
Place the two flours on a countertop and form a well in the center.
Add the 2 eggs to the center of the flour mound.
With a fork stir the eggs and gradually add the flour into them.
Continue to incorporate the eggs into the flours until a dough is formed.
Shape into a ball and begin kneading it with the heel of your hand turing the dough and folding over itself several times until the dough is no longer sticky.
Shape the dough into a ball, cover it and allow it to rest for 15 minutes.
After the dough has rested, begin rolling it out with the pasta machine starting with the thickest setting and working your way down to the thinnest setting until you have a long sheet. Dust the dough with more flour if the dough is sticky before sending it through the machine again.
At this point you can decide what shape pasta you want. Either sheets, ravioli, linguini or thin noodles are some options.
Let the pasta shapes sit loosely spread out on a dry towel to air dry for 10-15 minutes before cooking in salted water.
Notes
Some of my favorite resources on Italian cooking are from the classic chefs, Marcella Hazan and Giuliano Bugialli. Find their cook books and sit back and enjoy learning.