Fresh Pasta for everyone!

Before January 7^th, I never had any inclination to make my own pasta. My exposure to fresh pasta was limited to visiting Filomena's Ristorante in Georgetown and watching the ladies in the entrance window roll out fresh pasta dough into noodles and then later buying freshly made pasta from Vace, the Italian deli in Cleveland Park. But Mark Bittman did it again. His column nudged me toward another new and exciting cooking adventure that I probably would not have tried without his video guidance. Just like I fell in love with Brussels sprouts one cold winter night in 2009, this winter I have fallen for fresh pasta made in the food processor. Based on my successful pasta making experiences of Friday and Monday night, I pledge to (hopefully) never buy dried lasagna noodles again.

I used to avoid making my own dough by telling myself I wasn’t a baker. I am not a baker: I lack the patience and attention to detail required to be an exceptional baker. I do, however, make excellent pizza dough and now pasta dough and whose success is solely due to The Food Processor. For me the hardest part of making dough is sufficiently incorporating the butter or water into the flour to create the small doughy particles that eventually get kneaded together to make the dough ball. Yet with the food processor fresh pasta from flour to noodle in about an hour...I promise I wouldn't lie to you.

Pasta in the Rough: Fresh Pasta from Mark Bittman

Ingredients:

2 cups flour, plus more for coating the dough and rolling it out

1 teaspoon of salt

3 egg yolks

2 eggs

2 tablespoons water

1. Add the flour and salt to the food processor bowl. Pulse a few times to combine.

2. Add the egg yolks and eggs. Pulse a few times at 10 seconds intervals.

The dough should be a light yellow color and beginning to form tiny, dry dough particles.

3. With the blade spinning, slowly add the 2 tablespoons of water through the plunger hole.

At this point, the dough should start to stick together with a slightly darker yellow appearance.

4. If much of the dough is sticking to the walls of the food processor, add a few tablespoons of flour and pulse again.

5. Remove the dough from the bowl and form a ball. Coat the the ball in flour so it doesn't stick to all surfaces.

6. Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes at room temperature. It can rest in the refrigerator up to 24 hours.

7. Place a pot of water to boil while you wait. (It doesn't have to be large. Because the pasta cooks so quickly, I found it easier to cook the pasta in small batches.)

8. After the 30 minutes have passed, with a knife cut the dough ball into four parts.

9. Using a rolling pin (or a wine bottle works in a pinch) roll out one of the dough quarters into a thin sheet.

For pasta that will be sauced and served, try to roll the dough out to one eighth of an inch. For lasagna noodles, roll out the dough to one fourth of an inch. Keep in mind the pasta expands a bit while it cooks.

10. Use a knife to cut the pasta sheet into either squares, rectangles, or large sheets. Drop the pasta a few pieces at a time into boiling water, and remove it as soon as the pasta floats back to the top of the pot--about 1 to 2 minutes.

The cooked product.

The final product, one topped with red sauce and meatballs, the with basil pesto.