Pasta Making - have a go, it's easy

Pasta seems to be something that we all take for granted, it comes in packets (usually dried) and we drop it into boiling water ready for the meal. But have you ever wondered how its made or how easy it is to make? Well a couple of years back we saw that we could get an attachment for my Kitchenaid which would roll and cut pasta. It just had to be tried!
The first thing after admiring the wonderful design and quality workmanship was to source the pasta flour. Now initially this was a problem because only Tesco seemed to have it and when they did only in a limited number of packets. However Morrisons now stock good quality pasta flour grade 00. The first few batches were made using just pasta flour, eggs, salt, a little oil and water. It was fine but not as we had hoped, ie light and mach tastier than dried pasta.
Then we found that mixing in semolina and pasta flour 50/50 made for a much nicer product, far far better than anything from the shops.

So how do we make this lovely pasta?

• 300gm of pasta flour grade 00
• 300gm of semolina flour
• 6 eggs
• tsp salt
• tbsp olive oil
• water

Put all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix. Next add the eggs (always crack eggs into a separate container first before adding to the mix). Using the dough hook mix into a dough adding the oil and if required the water.
Note: the dough needs to look like pastry, evenly mixed and an even colour.
This next stage is something we learnt from experience: leave the dough to rest, coved in the fridge or a cool place for about an hour.
Take the the ball of dough and coat lightly in pasta flour, cut into four or six pieces, kneed into balls.
Setting the pasta rollers to the widest setting feed each ball of dough through several times. After each pass fold the resulting sheet in half and re-roll inserting the folded end FIRST.  This stops air pockets.
The process of rolling breaks down the gluten and makes the pasta light and
 very tasty.
Once the dough takes on an elastic feel then start to reduce the thickness by moving the roller settings.

We then leave the dough resting a little while on muslin, but some people hang it over a rail or bar.

Next swap the rollers for the cutters. Take each sheet and pass through the cutters and either hang to dry in a warm place, dust with flour, bag and freeze or use fresh, what-ever takes your fancy.

The pictures show our posh drying rack which will take a full 1kg batch of dough and will allow it to dry overnight in a warm room.

We always cover with muslin when leaving pasta to dry. Never put in a sealed container until totally dry otherwise the pasta will  grow a lovely grey or green bloom!

We don't buy pasta anymore, its quick and easy to make your own and its much much nicer to eat.

I highly recommend this book by  Katie Cladesi: