Homemade Pasta

After you've experimented a while with pastas from various sources, you'll want to venture out on your own. Making your own homemade pasta offers the same delight as grinding your own coffee, growing your own vegetables and other do-it-yourself food and drink projects. You get the same advantages as those others, as well: a truly fresh, delicious product.

Making your own pasta is simplicity itself, though there's a bit of effort involved. You'll need:

1 lb of fine white flour. You can use Grade 00 Italian, or American-style breadmaking flour. The latter has a bit more gluten, making for a firmer pasta.

4 eggs. For a more 'egg noodle' color and flavor, drain off some of the whites and add more yolks.

That's it, apart from a little bit of salt and possibly some water.

Pour the flour into a large bowl and make a round valley in the center to hold the eggs. Beat the eggs just slightly in another bowl and pour into the 'valley of flour'. Add a pinch of salt and stir gently until the flour is wetted with the egg.

If the mixture is still dry pour some water into your palm, then release and fling the remaining drops into the bowl. Don't overdo it. The idea is just to keep the flour from being powdery, not to use water as an ingredient.

Now for the part that takes a bit of effort: kneading. To avoid fatigue, use the heel of your hand more than the fingers. Knead the dough for 10-15 minutes. That allows the gluten in the flour to combine, making for a firm, but elastic pasta dough. Let the dough rest, covered with a moist towel, for about 20 minutes.

Now for the shaping steps.

Sprinkle a bit of flour on a large work surface. A marble countertop is perfect, but wood or formica will do. It needs to be at least one foot by one foot and very flat for best results.

Roll the pasta dough out with a wooden roller that had a few sprinkles of flour sprinkled over its surface. Or, you can use a round empty wine bottle. Take care not to press hard enough to break the bottle, of course.

Start from the middle and work your way out until you have a large, thin slab (about the thickness of a dime). Flip and flour lightly to keep it from sticking, but go easy in order to avoid drying out the pasta too much.

Now you can cut and shape to preference.

You can use a pasta machine to slice it into fettuccine or lasagna or any of a dozen other shapes. Or you can slice it into smaller shapes for ravioli or tortellini.

Remember that when boiling fresh pasta you should shorten the cooking length. Store-bought pasta contains durum wheat, which takes longer to cook. Fresh, homemade pasta has less gluten, making for a quicker meal. Three to five minutes should do it.

For variety, pasta can be colored or flavored. Green is among the most common choices. Just add to the mix a few ounces of raw spinach that has been heated a few minutes. For red, use finely diced carrots instead with a tablespoon of tomato paste.