My husband requested that I make a family favorite that included making your own noodles. I had never, ever considered making my own noodles. He simply replied, “Oh it is so easy!” Funny, when I inquired how many times he had done it, the answer was zero. Hmm. Turns out his mom did it and apparently she made it look easy. So off to research the options for me! I have a great Italian cookbook that I love and went to first. I used most of their directions except instead of cutting it I decided to use my handy dandy Kitchen Aid Mixer Pasta Attachment instead of rolling it out and cutting it myself. Well, that is until it was taking a million years and not working very well. At this point I left the Kitchen Aid pasta making to my mother, who was around helping, who proceeded to make fun little macaroni shapes. I took all of the dough that we had created that wasn’t in the mixer and started rolling it out in preparation for cutting. We joked that we should see who would get done first. You would think using a modern machine would still mean that she was done first. You would be WRONG! It took her twice as long with a fraction of the dough to work with. In the end, regardless of whose dough, I liked it and it really was easy as my husband had suggested. I will definitely do it again and am looking forward to experimenting with other “types” or “flavors” of dough in the future. Here is how we did it.
Author/Source:
, pages 206-208.Ingredients:
As a general guide, use 1/2 cup of Unbleached White Flour to each egg. With one egg yielding approximately 2 servings.
4 Eggs
2 cups Flour
Salt
Directions:
Place the flour in the center of a clean smooth work surface. Make a well in the middle. Break the eggs into the well. Add a pinch of salt. Start beating the eggs with a fork, gradually drawing the flour from the inside walls of the well. As the paste thickens, continue the mixing with your hands. Incorporate as much flour as possible until the mixture forms a mass. It will still be lumpy. If it still sticks to your hands, add a little more flour. Set the dough aside. Scrape off all traces of the dough from the work surface until it is perfectly smooth. Wash and dry your hands. Lightly flour the work surface. Knead the dough by pressing it away from you with the heel of your hands, and then folding it over towards you. Repeat this action over and over, turning the dough as you knead. Work for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Flour the rolling pin and work surface. Pat the dough into a disc and begin rolling it out into a flat circle, rotating it one quarter turn after each roll to keep its shape round. Roll until the disc is about 1/8 inch thick. Using a pizza cutter cut the dough into usable strips. To serve, boil salted water. The pasta can be done as quickly as 15 seconds AFTER the water has returned to a boil. Test it for doneness before draining the water and serving.
Freezing Directions:
Prior to cooking you can place noodles in a freezer bag and freeze until you are ready to use. I would suggest dividing it into usable portions for ease of use later.
7 Comments
Join the discussionI have wanted a simple noodle recipe, and this is perfect! Thanks!!
For Thanksgiving and Christmas I often make homemade egg noodles. I have always mixed and cut them by hand.However, I have also made lasagna noodles. I has the pasta roller attachment for the KA mixer. My set came with the roller attachment for making flat sheets. After you roll them to the desired thickness you can leave them in flat sheets for lasagna or it also has 2 cutters for making long noodles like fettucine.If you want to make noodles in the future, I think the roller/cutter combo is better than the extruder that you have. My mom has the extruder and she doesn’t like it either.
my mom always made her own noodles as well and always tells me “its so easy!” I really need to try it. I love her recipe too!
Great post, homemade pasta is so much better than the dried stuff we buy at the store.One quick tip I learned the hard way: After you cut the pasta generously add more flour to keep the pieces from sticking. Once they stick together it’s hard to pull them apart and if you try to boil it stuck together you’ll just end up with a doughy mess.
Any recipies for egg-less pasta by chance? We have food allergies here. 🙁
So, I have one question. If you make noodles for lasagna, should you cook them before you assemble, or will they actually cook in the sauce in the oven? Common sense tells me that they’ll cook in the sauce, but a lasagna would be an expensive test to try it out on.
You would cook the noodles first if you had made homemade noodles.