Homemade Pasta

If you are like me, you take pride in your cooking and and love to expand your techniques and hone your skills.  I have not made pasta from scratch for a few years, since I never had a pasta machine and had to cut all of the noodles by hand, but recently I came across one at a yard sale for a few dollars and after a little bit of cleaning I had it looking like new.  In this instructable I'll show you how to make homemade pasta with a pasta machine.

You will need the following ingredients:

• Cake flour - 1/2 cup initally and 1/2 cup later after it is out of the bowl
• All purpose flour - 1 cup
• Eggs - 1 egg
• Oil - 1 tbsp
• (Optional) Tomato Paste - about 4 ounces

I make my pasta a little different then most, I will mix mine in a bowl and then mix it on a counter top when it is dry enough.  

1. First add in the different flours .
2. Now the wet ingredients.
3. Begin mixing with your hands, if the dough seems to wet add in a small amount of cake flour.
4. Once it starts to clump, remove from the bowl and add in the additional flour.
5. It should be fairly dry and tear into strands.
6. Now it will be ready for the pasta machine.

Here are the basic steps for roiling out the pasta into sheets.

1. Set rollers of pasta machine at widest setting (position 1). Feed dough piece through flat rollers by turning handle. The dough may crumble slightly at first but will hold together after two to three rollings.
2. Lightly flour dough strip; fold strip into thirds or fourths. Feed through rollers again. Continue process 7 to 10 times until dough is smooth and elastic.
3. Roll out dough with machine. Reduce setting to position 3. Feed dough strip through rollers. Without folding strip into thirds, repeat on positions 5 and 6.

Do you want fettuccine or spaghetti?

Attach desired shape and size of pasta roller and feed dough through, catching finished pasta with free hand as it emerges. Repeat kneading and rolling with reserved dough pieces.

Optionally at this time you can choose to cut the sheets into squares and make ravioli or tortellini.

A lot of people will cook the pasta right away.  I like to sun dry mine and eat it at a later time, I think it makes the noodles have a silkier and firmer texture, but whatever method you choose enjoy.

For the main picture I made an Alfredo sauce from grated Parmesan cheese, some heavy whipping cream and a little dab of butter.