Homemade Pasta

Ingredients

4 eggs

3 1/2 cups of flour

1 Tbsp. of milk

1/2 tsp. of salt

This recipe makes a lot of pasta.  I usually half it for my family and we have plenty.  I know my cousin has frozen it before but it really is best fresh.  You can refrigerate it for a few hours but since it only takes me about 30 minutes to make I just prefer to make it a little before I start dinner.

You want to put the flour and salt in your bowl then make a well in the middle to put the eggs into and last add the milk.  You can just use water also.  The milk and water is just to help get the right consistency.  These eggs are extra large eggs, the size of the egg makes in a difference in how much milk or water to use.  

Mix it until it is mixed together then I put on my dough hook to knead it a little.  It looks more crumbly than dough but then you drop it onto a surface and knead it by hand and it should stick together at that point.  If it is too dry add a little milk or water and mix it again.  If it is too sticky it is hard to roll so you will want to add flour.  Like rolls or bread it just takes practice to get the right texture.  

Once it is kneaded into a nice ball you will want to separate it into two pieces for half a batch or 4 pieces if you are making a full batch.  

Roll it out a little, mostly just enough to fit it into the roller. 

 This is why I love homemade pasta.  It is the attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer and it makes rolling out the pasta so quick and easy.  Not the cheapest investment but worth every penny for me.  I bought the combo pack with the roller and then two cutters, one for spaghetti and one for thicker noodles. 
You can buy a hand roller for cheaper and some people roll it out by hand but it takes a bit to get the dough as thin as you would want it.  The roller starts out at a 1 setting and goes to a 7 which would be really thin pasta like angel hair.  You want to roll it out on setting 1 and 2 first.

The dough after the first pass through the roller on the #1 setting.  Pretty crumbly and crazy.  Looking yummy so far right?

Fold it in half and you can add any of the little pieces that came off in the first pass then put it through the roller again at the #1 setting.  You will need to continue to do this several times.  Pass it through then fold and pass it through again.  Then roll it out on the #1 setting and then without folding it roll it out on the #2 setting.  Then fold it and roll it out on the #1 setting.  You will want to keep rolling it out and try to switch it horizontal to get a nice edge to it also. 

Starting to look a lot more like pasta.  You need to keep rolling it out until the pasta does not have any more holes or cracks in it.  I seriously could just roll pasta out for an hour, it smells yummy and is quite hypnotic.  However when I have children whining in the background about how hungry they are it brings me back to reality.  This is looking pretty good but I fold it and roll it out a few more times after this. 

This is now finished and ready to be rolled out thinner.  So you roll it out on #2 then move up to #3, #4, #5 as thin as you want to go.  I was making this for homemade soup so I stopped at 5.  Usually I like a little thinner pasta so spaghetti I usually go to #6. 

This is the length after rolling it to #5.  The pasta can get really long you just want to feed it carefully so I doesn't bend and then hold it as it comes out of the roller.  The pasta is really quite strong even though it is very thin.  If you rolled it out long enough you will not have any holes in it.  Cut this to the length you want your noodles. 

Then put it through the cutter to make the strips.  With a pasta cutter you can make ravioli and lasagna, I need to figure out how to roll it to make a penne.  Right now I mostly stick to the fettuccine and spaghetti.  You only need to cook your homemade pasta about 3 minutes.  Keep checking it for consistency you want.