Pod Coffee Makers 411

Pasta is comfort food, whether or not you grew up in an Italian kitchen. Some of my first memories are of eating spaghetti, slurping up the long noodles and licking up the sauce. The ingredients in pasta are so simple, flour, eggs, olive oil and water. How can something so simple taste so good? If you have never made your own pasta at home it is time to treat yourself. Homemade pasta is one of the great marvels of the kitchen. So, roll up your sleeves, gather the kids or grandkids, friends and family and get ready to transform wet and dry ingredients into dough. And from the dough into noodles and from noodles into comfort food.

The key to making great pasta is to get the dough to the right consistency and then rolling it to an even thickness before cutting it into various shapes. Some cooks prefer to roll the dough out by hand using a rolling pin and a smooth surface, like a wooden cutting board or a marble slab. I recommend the use of a pasta machine to achieve expert results consistently. With so many different types of machines on the market to choose from, the only decision you’ll have to make is manual versus an electric model. Good manual hand cranked machines should be heavy and have a base that clamps to the table or surface you are working on. Atlas, Imperia and CucinaPro are quality names for manual machines. Weston, Lello and Imperia all make electric pasta machines, and Kitchenaid does double duty by offering an attachment to its standard mixer. Although I have the Kitchenaid pasta attachment, I prefer to use my hand crank Atlas pasta machine, because it always seems like more fun to have one person turn the crank while someone else catches the dough.

There is really no difference between mixing the dough in a food processor, with an electric mixer or by hand, except that in the hand method you will begin to knead the dough in the bowl. With electric appliances, the dough comes together rather quickly, and it takes a bit more time by hand, but that’s part of the fun. Put the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Mix the eggs together slightly and then add the oil and water and mix well. Pour this liquid mixture into the center of the flour and start mixing with a fork until the dough starts to clump together and the flour is incorporated with the liquids. At this point, you need to get your hands into the dough to finish mixing.

Put a small bit of flour on your hands before touching the dough so it doesn’t stick to your fingers. Begin kneading the dough in the bowl by taking the dough from the sides, folding it onto the center, pressing down and out with the palm of your hand and repeating the process. Rotate the bowl as you are kneading to make sure that all of the dough gets folded and pressed into itself. When the dough becomes one clump and is no longer sticking to the sides of the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured board and continue kneading for 2 to 3 minutes. The dough should be soft and elastic, smooth and shiny.

The purpose of kneading the dough is to make sure that all the ingredients are fully incorporated together and to get the gluten in the flour to begin its work. If your dough is not coming together, sprinkle it with a little water and continue kneading. If the dough is sticking to your hands or the board, add a little flour by dusting the surface of the dough and the board. The dough is ready to rest when it becomes smooth, soft and pliable. Let it sit on the board at room temperature covered with a clean kitchen towel for about 30 minutes before rolling the dough.

The basic steps in rolling out pasta dough are to run the dough between the rollers of the pasta machine beginning on the thickest setting and gradually rolling the dough on narrower settings. You do not want to roll all the dough at once; there’s just too much of it, so it is easier to cut the dough into quarters and roll one piece at a time. You will end up with 4 or more elongated rectangular sheets of dough, ready to be cut into any shape you want. Some shapes like papardelle, which are strips about 1 1/2 inches wide, can be cut by hand. All pasta makers come with one or more attachments for cutting the dough, the most popular being tagliatelle and tagliolini. Some of the electric models will have an attachment that extrudes the dough to create circular shapes like spaghetti and capellini.

Once shaped the pasta is lightly dusted with flour again, to prevent sticking to itself, and allowed to rest. You can cook the pasta immediately and toss it with your favorite sauce, or you can let it dry. A pasta drying rack keeps the noodles separated as they dry so the noodles won’t end up as a big clump of dough when you try to cook them. You can also freeze the pasta for future use.

Once you have made and eaten a batch or two of your own homemade pasta you will find it hard to go back to eating the commercially made and packaged type. Making pasta at home with friends and family is a joy and creates wonderful memories. It is said that food tastes better, and is better for you, when it is made with love. You can’t get much more comfort than that. Happy pasta making!

Making fresh pasta at home has been a Lauder family event for years. Family, friends and neighbors all take a hand in making the dough and sitting at the table to feast on the results. Watch a video on rolling dough through a pasta machine on Geri’s website, browse great cookbooks and select a pasta machine for your next family pasta party.

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