Making Pasta: Take Two

My hubby gave me the pasta attachments for my KitchenAid for my birthday. I made pasta once (ravioli's no less) that sucked because I was...well, a dummy about one or two instructions for the pasta roller. Also, I didn't have 00 flour that time, and made do with the AP flour I had. I read a lot about making good pasta and started to look for 00 (zero, zero) flour in stores. No luck. Finally I had to order it from an Amazon store. There was not one place around here that had this kind of flour (not even Whole Foods). If I was going to make pasta (again) I would do it right, dammit.

So here goes...

3 cups of 00 Flour
2 large whole eggs

Scoop flour into a pile on your work surface, make a well in the center. Crack eggs in well. Begin combining eggs with flour by gently pulling flour from the sides of the well and incorporating with a fork (see below). Go slowly so you don't "bring down the walls" of the well and your egg escapes. (This was really easy and surprisingly more so than mixing it in the KitchenAid mixer like I did last time.)

Soon this mess will begin to form a dough. Combine/knead to pick up more flour. (see below)




















Let your dough rest under a bowl for 10-15 minutes.

Using my hand dandy Kitchen Aid with my new pasta roller/cutter attachments (scary knives in the background give this scene a sense of foreboding).

I flatten my dough ball and stretch it a little by hand and then cut it into thirds. Begin with the largest dial setting for the pasta roller and begin to feed through. I like to feed each piece through twice. Then move down to the next setting and repeat with all the pieces. At some point when the strips are getting too long to handle I cut them in half. Continue until you have a sheet so thin you could read a newspaper through it (I was making angel hair, you may be making something else and wouldn't need them so thin).

Super thin sheets. (see below)

Change the attachment from rolling/thinning to cutting. Begin feeding in. In hindsight I wish I had had a bowl or plate underneath because I caught the noodles with my hand but a lot of little pieces fell. Also, I didn't want all the extra flour from the work surface on them.

I made nests after each handful before feeding the next strip in. I had salted water boiling and ready for them.

You could also dry these and store them for later.

Boil for 2-3 minutes. This pasta was super tender and delicate. Didn't need any butter only a sprinkle of Parmesan and some roasted garlic. Really yummy. So yummy that I didn't get a photo of the dish before gobbling it up. Sorry.

Served with 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken, sourdough bread, and steamed veggies (the garlic cloves were perfect for mashing and adding to the noodles and spreading on bread with olive oil).

Postscript: Later as I cleaned my attachments (you clean them after the pasta has dried on them), I must have been a little delusional and got the cleaning brush caught in the spinning noodle cutter. It ate it up fast. I turned it off and then worked on cutting the brush out with scissors and a sharp knife. Grrrrr....I still haven't gotten all the bristles out and am afraid I have ruined this attachment. Note: Do not clean when you are tired.