Okay, so I wanted to try making dried pasta from scratch. I’ve always bought it from the store, you know, the usual stuff in a box. But I thought, why not give it a go myself? It seemed like a fun little project.
First off, I gathered all the stuff I needed. Turns out, making pasta is pretty simple when it comes to ingredients. I just needed some flour, a couple of eggs, and a pinch of salt. That’s it! I already had all of that in my kitchen, so I didn’t even have to go out and buy anything.
Mixing the Dough
I started by dumping the flour onto my kitchen counter. Then, I made a little well in the middle, like a volcano. I cracked the eggs into this well and added the salt. Next, I slowly started mixing the eggs with the flour, using a fork. It was a bit messy, but hey, that’s part of the fun, right?
Once it all came together into a shaggy dough, I got my hands dirty. I kneaded the dough for a good 10 minutes. It’s a bit of a workout, I won’t lie. You want the dough to be smooth and elastic. I kept kneading until it felt just right.
Resting Time
After all that kneading, I wrapped the dough in some plastic wrap and let it rest for about 30 minutes. Apparently, this helps the gluten relax or something. I just went and did some other stuff while I waited.
Rolling and Cutting
When the dough was done resting, I took out my rolling pin. I dusted the counter with a bit more flour and started rolling out the dough. It needs to be super thin, like paper-thin. This part took some time and patience. If I had a pasta machine, this probably would’ve been way easier, but I don’t, so I just powered through with my rolling pin.
Once it was thin enough, I folded the dough over a few times and then sliced it into strips. These were going to be my pasta noodles. They weren’t perfectly uniform, but they looked pretty good for a first try!
Drying the Pasta
I carefully picked up the noodles and draped them over a makeshift drying rack I rigged up. You can just lay them flat on a baking sheet, but I saw some people online using drying racks, and I thought it looked more professional, lol. I left them to dry for a couple of hours.
- Gather ingredients: Flour, eggs, salt.
- Mix and knead: Form a dough and knead until smooth.
- Rest: Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
- Roll and cut: Roll out the dough thinly and cut into strips.
- Dry: Allow the pasta to dry for a few hours.
Finally, when they were all dried out, I cooked them in some boiling water for a few minutes. They turned out pretty great! They were a bit thicker than the store-bought stuff, but they tasted awesome, especially with some homemade sauce I whipped up. I’m definitely going to try this again, maybe with different shapes next time.
It was a bit of work, but it was totally worth it. If you’ve got some time to kill, you should give it a shot. And there you go, from my kitchen to yours. Maybe try it yourself one of these days.
