How to Use a Pasta Roller: Fearless Friday May 7, 2010

Many thanks go to Candice of Ragamuffin Design. I’m still recovering and she was fabulous enough to step up to the plate so Fearless Friday would still happen, please be kind and give her an atta-girl or three. If you’re new here, don’t worry about all the text and pictures, the PrintFriendly feature at the end of the post makes getting rid of all the excess text & pictures easy peasy -Heather

Candice says:

Years ago, someone I know was dating a boy fresh off the boat from Italy. Ok that’s a lie, he was born in America, but his mother wasn’t and along with having a filthy mouth she used to laugh at us silly Americans for buying dry, boxed pasta. Kind of like I laugh at silly Americans for buying jarred tomato sauce -kidding. Anyway, I let that bother me for about 2 minutes because, well, I was 14 and I could not care less how my mom made my spaghetti.

Skip to the present day. I’ll wait while you catch up.

A few days ago I was out on one of my typical thrifting expeditions and where I found a pasta maker for $4. It grossed me out to think about using someone’s used cooking gadget, but I own bleach. So, I soaked it for a day, scrubbed and cleaned out the nooks and there ya go, I no longer had an excuse to not try homemade pasta. BTW Heather, if you know how to clean one, please let me know cause it’s a !@#$%.

In the past five years -during which I became a SAHM, oh gosh, don’t tell my grandmom I said that. she hates that term and wonders what is wrong with being a housewife- I realized I needed to stop being afraid to cook. I’ve always loved to bake and cook, but I never tried anything daring, and in these past several years I told myself to take some chances. It’s amazing how something that seems so daunting, such as homemade pasta, can be so easy! I mean, it has TWO INGREDIENTS people. TWO! That’s one less than biscuits!

If you can get over the fact that you have to get flour on you clothes -and on your face, in your eyes, on the floor, in between the counter and the stove- and spend a few minutes playing with the dough and letting it sit some then you will realize that cooking/baking from scratch isn’t scary at all, it’s fun. Sure, seeing the time it takes, like bread, might turn you off, but you aren’t even in the kitchen most of that time. For instance, today when my pasta dough was getting some alone time under a bowl my son and I were at Riverfront park finding shark teeth. You wouldn’t BELIEVE the size of the one I found…WOW!

I’m downplaying making pasta a little bit because, yes, it does take some time. The first part is simple, but using the pasta maker took some getting used to. My biggest problem with it was the sticking. The flour helps, obviously, but then it slipped right off the pasta maker, so I had to make sure the dough stayed dry. I lost a few scraps of dough in the process, but it got easier as I went.
In the end, was I glad I did it? Yes. Will I do it again? Yes. Will I still buy boxed pasta? ABSOLUTELY!

Fresh Pasta Ingredients:

• 2 c. all purpose flour (extra for dusting and kneading)
• 4 eggs

Fresh Pasta Instructions:

I spooned the 2 cups of flour onto my board, made a large well in the middle and cracked the 4 eggs right inside the well.

Use a fork to beat the eggs.

You are SUPPOSED to continue using the fork to incorporate the flour into the eggs, but my flour barricade broke and I had to quickly scrape the egg and keep it from spilling onto the floor. I also had to keep myself from crying because my 5-year-old was laughing at me. He thought it was HILARIOUS. I used a scraper to just quickly karate chop the TWO ingredients together.

I got this recipe from Martha, and she says to REMOVE ALL LOOSE DOUGH FROM THE BOARD BEFORE KNEADING. What Martha says, Martha means and she terrifies me, so I did it.

On that CLEAN surface, it says to lightly flour and knead the dough until smooth and elastic. It says “about 10 minutes”, but I took about 7 or 8 minutes because it seemed right. Then you let it sit under a bowl for an hour and a half (or refrigerate overnight).

Go find shark teeth…

After an hour and a half, I cut the dough into quarters. I kneaded each section quickly to form a disk, floured it some more and fed it through the thickest setting on the pasta maker. You are going to fold it lengthwise into thirds. I did this two more times on that setting.

after the initial 3 times on the thickest setting, run each section once through the remaining finer settings. It was hard to tell on mine because it didn’t always click, but I found 3 more settings worked best. (I keep reading they have from 6-10. that’s craaazy). I also cut mine in half several times to make feeding it through easier. my favorite part? the fact that when i was turning the handle, it sounded like the smoke monster on Lost…

Once the sections were thin enough, and to my liking, I just ran it through the fettuccine section. That part was FUN and EASY! I finished up the other three disks and let the pasta drape over a bowl while I made carbonara. I didn’t spend enough time with that because they stuck together so I would suggest using a cookie sheet or something.

The recipe kind of stopped at this point, but I read another recipe that said to boil for a minute. Mine seemed a little thick, so I boiled it for closer to 2, and that was a mistake especially since the carbonara needed al dente pasta. It got a tad mushy, but was still delicious!!

What have you tried this month? If you’ve tried a new recipe or technique over the course of the last month, share your link below, if you first click the blue button, or tell us about your Fearless Friday Adventure in the comments. Remember, it’s about both the successes and the failures.