Recipe: Fresh Pasta

Just before the Christmas holidays we had set aside one day for making fresh pasta.  A few years ago we purchased a hand crank pasta machine; cost was under $30.  In the past we made pasta more than a few times, but could not get the pasta dough just right.  Each time we tried a little more of this, or less of than and finally we hit it just right!  So practice does make it perfect and here are the recipes for fresh pasta:

For Spaghetti: 1 cup semolina, 1 cup flour, 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

For Ravioli/Manicotti: 2 1/3 cup flour, 2 eggs, 4 egg yolks, 1/2 teaspoon salt. (Filling: 8oz ricotta, 4 oz shredded mozzarella, 1 egg, salt and pepper to taste.  Finely chopped parsley is optional!  Mix very well.)

Either recipe:  sift the dry ingredients together.  Make a round mound of it and then make a crater in the center (looks like a volcano top). Crack the eggs and yolks into the crater and slowly break the yolks and gently whisk the eggs with a fork, slowly incorporating a little bit of flour as you whisk.  When you've blended it all to a crumbly mixture, use your hands mix all the remaining flour into a dough.  (If you cannot get all the flour to become "dough-y", add a tablespoon of water.) Knead the dough for about 10 minutes: fold over, push with the heel of the your palm; 1/4 turn and fold over and push, keep repeating this until the dough is smooth.  Plastic wrap the dough and let rest an hour.  Set up your pasta machine and go!  The pasta machines include instructions on how to run the dough through the machine to make the spaghetti or the flat pasta for ravioli/manicotti.  I used a small muffin cutter to make my raviolis - place a dollop of ricotta mix slightly off center, brush edges with egg white, fold over and pinch down edges with fingers or lightly with a fork! For the manicotti, we cut rectangles to size: we bought small "toaster oven" size baking pans and determined that 5 manicotti fit nicely and made pasta sheets that were about 5" x 6".  Place dollop of ricotta mix close to one edge and roll; brush end with egg white before finally rolling closed.  Place in pan and freeze.  (Best to freeze both ravioli or manicotti: place ravioli in boiling water and boil about 8-10 minutes; manicotti in a preheated oven 425 degrees - toaster oven is perfect - and bake 25 minutes.)

Check out our pasta pictures below.  As you can see our cooking ranges from simple (Poor Man's Lasagna to "starting from scratch")....but good food is good food anyway you prepare and serve it with love!