After I had completed my outside jobs around the house, I thought it would be good to prepare a stockpile of pasta given one of my goals is to make our own pasta for a year.
A few weeks ago, I made spaghetti, which turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag, some parts good, some bad. Since that time, I have made ravioli which I will post about soon, and today I made fettuccine.
The recipe was very simple. 250gm of plain flour, 250gm continental flour or semolina, 5 eggs and mix initially with a fork and then your hands until it forms a firm dough. Then roll through the machine 5 times on number 1 then roll once on every setting until you finally roll out at number 6. The sheet will be very thin, but easily manageable.
Then cut into about 40cm lengths and run it through your wide cutter to make fettuccine (little slices).
Then dry the pasta out for about an hour.
As you can see, all I have made a drying rack out of two old broom handles, that I sanded and prepared with olive oil and rested them on two dinning chairs. Nothing special, just practical. I also put a towel underneath in case some dropped down during drying.
A word of advice whilst making pasta. Ensure that your machine is firmly fastened to the bench or table you are using. You use quite a bit of force getting the dough through the initial setting.
When the pasta was dry, Kim and I divided the pasta up into quarters and bagged them up and put them in the freezer. That way will have fettuccine ready for quick meals like Fettuccine Alfredo!
Here are the bags in the freezer.
I also had a little bit of dough to experiment with, and managed to run a very small sheet through to number 9 on the machine. I then whizzed it through the smallest cutter I had to see what turned out. Well, low and behold I made Taglierini (little cut ones) which is a thin form of Tagliatelle. I let this little nest dry out, then cooked it in a little salted water, drained well and served it in a small bowl with butter and pepper. It was delicious, and separated well in the pot when cooked. Kim, Ben and I scoffed down what little there was, so I dare say I know what I am doing tomorrow!
Hi Gavin,
I started making pasta this past year and we also love the taste (store bought does not compare!). I’ve always done it with 6 egg yolks and a bit of water to bind and only did the whole eggs after your previous pasta post 🙂
I found the dough a lot softer and a lot stickier. Whole eggs seem to be much easier dough, only yolks seem to be drier dough but less drying needed (ie can boil straight away), though dough needs to rest in fridge wrapped for 1/2 hr. So I guess it works out same in time, either drying or resting.
Never knew that you could freeze it though, so will definitely be making bigger batches and freezing as well. Have you tried storing it in an airtight container after it dries? Wonder if that would work as well…
Looking forward to hearing about your ravioli adventures!
Annet
Hi Gavin, I use a combination of strong plain flour (2 thirds) to 1 third of fine semolina. I find the fettuccine much easier to handle than the spaghetti type.
Hi Gavin – my dear Dad has found that resting the pasta dough in the fridge for half an hour or so gives great results. He uses whole egg’s and has stopped the drying step when they will be eating the pasta that day, so he rolls it, puts it through the cutters and cooks it straight away – utterly delicious with a low glycaemic index rating, and is very kind to troublesome colons when they “play up”.
Sending care and huggles, Michelle in Wellington, NZ
egg’s should read egg/s!