Homemade Pasta

On my long voyage of contraptions to make food stuffs from scratch, my latest gadget was a pasta maker, a gift from my sister-in-law and her family at Christmas time. I needed a pasta drying rack, which Bed Bath & Beyond never seemed to have in stock until recently, which is why it took me this long to actually make my first batch. It really was a fun process, and we just ate the noodles tonight. They were surprisingly good! (I wasn't sure if homemade noodles would have a drastically different texture or flavor than store-bought noodles, but I was pleasantly surprised.)

The first thing I was curious about when I first got the machine was, what the heck is semolina and how do I get my hands on it? It turns out that semolina is just a fancy kind of wheat germ. The good news is, to make pasta, you don't need to go to some fancy store; you can just use good ol' all purpose flour. Whew!

As I started looking at recipes, I realized I had, unfortunately, very few fresh ingredients on hand to make many of the various flavors of pasta. Luckily, I stumbled upon a recipe that called for tomato paste, and I had some of that in the pantry. So, tomato pasta it was! I used this recipe:

HOMEMADE TOMATO PASTA DOUGH
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided use
1/2 tsp. salt
2 beaten eggs
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
1 tsp. olive oil or cooking oil

In a mixing bowl stir together 2 1/4 cups of the flour and salt.  Combine the eggs, tomato paste and olive oil or cooking oil; add to flour. Mix well.

Ryan kneading the dough

Sprinkle kneading surface with the remaining 1/2 cup flour. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Knead till smooth and elastic (8 to 10 minutes). Cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Lilly and Abby "Helping"

Divide dough into thirds or fourths. On lightly floured surface roll each third of dough into a 16x12-inch rectangle or each fourth of dough into a 12 inch square.

Should have followed instructions and made a square, not a circle. My flattened pieces came out as triangles, not rectangles!

If using a pasta machine, pass dough through machine till 1/16 inch thick. Dust with additional flour, as necessary, to prevent sticking.

Cut and shape as desired.

Half a batch of fettucini, half of angel hair pasta

Makes 1 3/4 pounds fresh pasta

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I dried the pasta for a few hours on my handy dandy drying rack, then froze the noodles for several days. We ate the fruit of our labor tonight, in a pasta dish with chicken, green peppers, green onions, garlic, and grape tomatoes, with a little oregano for good measure. The noodles had just a hint of tomato, but it wasn't overpowering, which was nice for noodles with an olive oil base.