Homemade and Handmade Pasta
Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes I lack all confidence in the kitchen. It’s true. Sometimes a project will keep me up at night. Sometimes the ingredient list will just baffle me. Sometimes I hold my breath as I incorporate the ingredients, or I second guess myself and reread the recipe with every turn of my spatula.
It’s the absolute truth. Sometimes I just need someone to hold my hand through a new recipe… or I at least need to be allowed to throw my hands up and call uncle at any point during the process.
I tell you all this so you know that when I stepped in the kitchen to make pasta this past weekend… well… I was totally intimidated. I wasn’t sure I could pull this off.
I know… I know… everyone was telling me how easy it was. Frankly, I was convinced they were liar liarpants. For real. Handmade pasta!? Easy? Not possible.
Well, let me be honest. Pasta isn’t as entirely easy as everyone would have me believe. That’s not to say it’s impossibly hard…. not at all. For me, making pasta by hand just involves a little talking to myself, a big area where I could throw flour all around, a rolling pin and willingness for a good arm work out, and a few hours set aside for doughing… mostly just patting it, talking to it, and walking around the house showing it to whatever family member would pay attention to me.
The end result is beyond… BEYOND comforting. The process was super satisfying, and really? So Much Fun! Pasta! I made pasta! Daaang! I’m going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for this one. Don’t mind me… I’ll be done in a minute.
Pasta is pretty straight forward. Flour and eggs, mixed, rolled, cut and boiled. But. And there’s always a but. What kind of flour do you use? There’s 00 flour. There’s semolina. There’s all-purpose flour… and don’t even get me started on the combinations! I used all-purpose flour because I wanted to experiment with a recipe that you could easily replicate at home. We’re in this together, right?
There is one thing worth noting…. this one is a big deal. Pay attention to egg size with this recipe from Mario Batali. All of the baking recipes that I post call for large egg. Large eggs are standard baking practice. This recipe calls for extra-large eggs. You’ll need that added moisture. It’s important.
Here’s a snazzy step-by-step followed by the recipe and official instructions. Yea? Yea!
Six eggs and a dash of olive oil in a flour well. Things are about to get good.
Whisk up the eggs and slowly bring in the flour. Cool. I’m totally playing with my food!
Coming together. Getting there!
This might just be a ball of dough! Almost! Dang I’m good. Confidence is growing.
I had a lot of the initial 5 cups of flour left over. I decided that was ok. I dumped the excess in the trash. So there.
The sixth and final cup of flour got sprinkled on the counter and put to work inside the pasta dough.
But I even had some of the last cup of flour left over!
Excess flour is fine fine fine! Look how pretty this dough ball is!
After a 30 minute rest it’s time to roll this beast out. Roll and roll and roll….
and roll and roll… until I just couldn’t roll anymore. Then it’s time to slice.
Slice and slice and slice and slice.
What do you think? Your turn?
Want a little YouTube courage? I watched this video before I started my pasta adventure. It was nice to see a visual.
Homemade and Handmade Pasta
recipe from Mario Batali
serves 6
5 to 6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or bread flour
6 extra-large eggs
3/4 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
Make pasta dough:
Put 5 cups flour in a 12-inch-wide mound on a work surface. Make a 6-inch-wide well in center (down to work surface) with fist. (The outer wall should be 1 1/2 to 2 inches high.)
Break eggs into well and add oil. Beat eggs and oil together with a fork, then gradually beat in flour from inner side of well wall, keeping wall intact while mixture is runny, until it comes together in a cohesive, kneadable mass (about two thirds of flour from mound will have been incorporated).
Knead dough with floured hands, incorporating just enough flour on work surface until dough no longer sticks to hands. (It will still be a little tacky; you will have flour left over.)
Set dough aside and scrape up and discard flour from work surface
Lightly reflour work surface using some of remaining cup flour and continue to knead dough, reflouring hands often, until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes more. (Dough should still be slightly tacky.)
Form dough into a ball, then dust well with flour and wrap in plastic wrap. Let dough rest 30 minutes at room temperature.
Rolling out the Pasta:
Here’s where the arm work out comes in.
Unwrap the dough from the plastic wrap. If the dough is sticky.. mine was… just dust it with flour. Cut the dough in half, put half on the big clean counter where you’re going to roll the pasta out, and rewrap the other half so it doesn’t dry out.
Lightly dust your work surface with rice flour or a little bit of all-purpose flour. Slowly and evenly begin to roll the dough out. Flip and twist the dough on the counter top to ensure that it isn’t sticking. If spots are sticking, lift the dough and lightly dust the surface with flour and continue rolling.
How thin do you need to roll the dough? Thinner than you think, it’ll plump up when cooked. I rolled mine thin enough so that I could vaguely see a magazine cover when placed under the dough. It should be thin enough to see something under it. Yea?
Once rolled out, take a pizza cutter and cut strips in your desired thickness. I made fettuccine sized noodles, but you can go just thinner for linguine or fatter for pappardelle… or even fatter for lasagna noodles. Just eyeball it if you have a steady hand. You can do it!
Once sliced, I loosely piled up the fresh noodles with just a bit of flour so they didn’t stick. I re-floured and fluffed them every once in a while just to make sure they didn’t stick. Loosely cover the cut noodles with plastic wrap and begin to roll and cut out the other half of dough.
Don’t want to cook your pasta right away? Want to store it? Here’s how!
Cooking your Pasta:
Once all your pasta is rolled and sliced, bring 8 quarts of water to a boil. Add 2 teaspoons of kosher salt to the boiling water and add half of the cut pasta. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes until al dente. Remove cooked pasta from boiling water with tongs, and drop in the other half of cut pasta to cook. Drain all of the cooked pasta in a colander. Do not rinse.
Sauce? How about a big ol’ Bolognese? Recipe coming soon!
96 Comments Add A Comment
I just started making my own pasta about a month ago and I’ve become obsessed! The trick was Deborah Madison’s pasta making lesson in “The Green’s Cookbook”. Suddenly I wasn’t making nasty lumps of unusable and ultimately inedible …er…dough. Yeah. Dough. If you want a homemade pasta that doesn’t involve a lot of arm exhausting rolling (I eventually invested in a pasta machine via ebay), try orechiette “little ear” pasta. I’ve found the key to that is to chuck the little cut up bits in flour before pressing them into the correct shape and then using the heal of your hand and your thumb instead of the palm of your hand and your thumb. Good luck! lovely pictures!
Dear Joy, thank you so much for posting this! I love making homemade stuff! I’m getting my first rolling pin for christmas hopefully! this will be the first thing i try when i get it! i am also in a good mood, because i just got my very first electric mixer, even if its just a hand mixer! good bye tired arms! anyway, thank you so much for amazing blogs! at first, i thought subscribing to this might be a drag because sometimes subscriptions sent you things you dont wanna read, but i love this blog! i read it whenever i can! thank you so much for being awesome, joy!
-catherine eng, age 12
It’s healing, isn’t it? There’s a reason why millions of Italian moms have done this for centuries– it fills your soul and satisfies some deep nurturing need. We’re all pasta makers at heart!
I haven’t done this all summer long, so this is a good reminder. I actually lover playing with the old stainless steel pasta roller, but not having to drag it out and set it up sounds a lot easier.
My favorite part is cutting, then tossing the flour-covered strips.
That looks really fun, I might have to try it one day. Home made pasta is so much finer than packet pasta.
I think people say it’s easy because they have a pasta maker to cut down on all the rolling!
Lovely post! It’s been a long time since I made pasta from scratch and I’ve been thinking about trying it again. I’m craving ravioli so maybe that’s a good place to start…
I’ve been wanting to do this forever! You’ve totally inspired me. I get what you’re saying about the hand holding lol. And I laughed out loud at the “so there” in reference to throwing out the excess flour. You crack me up.
wow very nice job.
Congrats.
olga.
oh i haven’t made my own pasta in a very long time. this was just the inspiration i needed to make a big floured mess in my kitchen :)
Thanks so much for sharing this fabulous recipe…I’ve been NEEDING to try my hand at homemade pasta. I think this provided all the incentive necessary…
I made homemade ravioli a couple of years ago. Although it was hard work I did enjoy it and it was definiely worth it in the end. It just tastes so much better!
Yum. I haven’t made pasta in ages. It reminds me a bit of bread making. The taste is unbelievable.
Isn’t it remarkable, that first time you make pasta, how simple it is, and what delicate and lovely results you get? Here’s to taking on your kitchen fears and coming out on top. Well done!
That pasta looks amazing. I have always been too intimidated to make home made pasta, but you make it look like a dream come true! I will have to give it a shot.
Isn’t pasta fun!?? I had my own little adventure after watching a video from The Amateur Gourmet for his fresh pasta with spicy tomato sauce recipe. He recommended using a pasta machine since rolling it out was for Italian grandmothers (or something like that). So OF COURSE I rose to the challenge and hand rolled it out too! The result was also Delicious. I have respect for the hand rolled pasta but am on the hunt for a good pasta machine.
I LOVE homemade pasta. My grandma has a pasta machine thing which rolls it out for you and cuts it into the desired shape. We’ve made regular pasta and ravioli so far and both were great!
great job making pasta!
I haven’t made pasta in years!! I’ve been thinking about it lately and I think I’m going to have to indulge now! I have a pasta maker hiding in the cabinet. Thanks for the inspiration!
Homemade noodles, exactly the same recipe you used, was the first thing I ever made. My mother abandoned me in the kitchen with a smile and a “ta!” at age 8 and told me that when she came back in the noodles better be ready for the soup that night. They were, it was fun, and I still use the recipe (from memory now) for my husband and little boys. Works for dumplings too. So glad to see that you are using the perfect recipe for good-old-fashioned-comfort-food-noodles!
I’m glad you’ve mastered pasta making. Although I don’t make it as much anymore, when I was single, I used to make a big batch and create single-serving nests for the freezer, placing them first on a floured cookie sheet for the initial freezing and then into a deep container. What a treat to come home from work, pop a little nest of pasta into boiling water for just a few minutes and eat it with butter and Parmesan cheese and a sprinkling of chopped parsley.
Thank you so much! I have been wanting to make pasta for the longest time and you have showed me that it isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be!
Can’t wait to try my own!
I can totally relate to your comments about confidence in the kitchen, I love making homemade recipes, but there are times when I ssem to lose all sense of capability and control. Recipes that normally would be straight forward and successful sometimes become so hard and just don’t turn out right. But most of the time everything is fine.
Extra Easy Homemade Recipes
Looks good! My pasta recipe is from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and uses two parts eggs to one part flour; I’m not surprised you had so much flour left, even using larger eggs!
You’ve inspired me to get off my duff and maybe make some pasta for dinner tonight.
Oh–lasagna just isn’t the same once you’ve had it with pasta you’ve made yourself. It’s so much better.
Oh boy I can’t wait to make this! Handmade pasta always seemed to intimidate me, but this looks like a good project. I think I will toss this pasta with sauteed brussels sprouts and pancetta. Yum!
Hi,
This is mouth watering, umaaah!
I will try myself now…thanks
This was easier than I thought! My husband was really impressed – he thought it had a great texture to it.
Hi Joy! Catherine again! I just made the homemade pasta and it’s pretty darn good, even though, i cut the recipe in half (due to my unfortunate lack of ingredients) and my horrible cutting skills. (Ironic, isn’t it, that I can draw a full-fledged eye, but I can’t cut even pasta????) Anyway, it’s wonderful, despite my horrible improvising (yes, it’s true, im sorry). I will try this again, and I WILL follow the recipe! Thanks Joy! Please email me!
-Catherine, age, 12
btw, thanks to you, joy, my dad got me a rolling pin and pizza cutter for christmas! score! lol. :-)
Dear Joy, I blame you!
I blame you for my identity crisis. Thanks. (really, that is a genuine Thanks, not sarcastic)
Ever since I found your blog I’ve conquered my fear of yeast (what?!) I’ve made fresh bread every week, and I made pasta today! What?! Just who the heck do I think I am? I don’t recognize myself anymore.
I love you… I mean…in a totally platonic, long-distance kind of way… yes, that’s the ticket!
I tried making this. I went for raviolis. Big fat fail. I don’t know why. I think I’m too much of a novice in the kitchen still…and I wasn’t expecting it to take so long, and I didn’t have a big enough counter to work with. I do intend to try again…and hope for better results. They tasted good, just were super-ugly. Going to get a sitter for my kid and my dog when my husband is at work and have myself a pasta-making day.
Hey Joy, I just saw this.. I make my own pasta too.. They come out lovely dont they? And smell great!! :D http://craftinesswhatnot.blogspot.com/2010/09/everything-homemade-homemade-pasta.html
HA! No more worrying what to do with all those left over eggs after making Easter cupcakes. I’ve also been wanting to make pasta for ages, today is the day!