May 7, 2020

The Best Pasta Tools & Simple Egg Pasta Recipe

Learning to make pasta (and sourdough) is hands down the most rewarding things I have learned. Every single time I drop my pasta into the boiling water to cook, I feel so damn proud of myself! That being said, if you haven’t made pasta and you’re intimidated – I was right there with you about a year ago. After the first time, you’ll wonder why you didn’t try this sooner. YOU’VE GOT THIS!

The Best Pasta Tools

Pasta Maker – I have used a couple different pasta makers and this is my favorite. It’s held up a lot better than the one I had that wasn’t an Italian brand.

Pasta Drying Rack – Makes it easy to hold pasta until you’re ready to throw it into water to cook or to dry pasta completely and store for later use.

Bicicletta Pasta Cutter – Great for quickly cutting uniform strips. Awesome for Pappardelle and Ravioli or other filled pastas.

Double Pasta Cutter – I use the straight side for a quick cut through dough and the wavy side for fancy looking edges.

Scraper (not the exact same one as mine, but a great price & fantastic rating) – Helpful to scrape dough from surfaces, cut dough into peaces, scoop up do. I use this for Pasta and Bread dough making!

The Best Pasta Recipe

2 eggs per 1 cup of flour

I have used King Arthur All Purpose Flour a lot, but have a new found love for their Pasta Flour. If you’re reading this and you want to make pasta RIGHT NOW, Gold Medal Flour works too! I have successfully used both them all.

The Process

Pour flour out onto a surface.

Use fingers to create a well (or volcano) in the middle of the flour.

Crack eggs into the well.

Stab yolks with fork. Start using the fork to whisk the egg with the flour inside of the well. As the consistency thickens, continue using the fork to begin to incorporate more flour into the middle with the eggs. The goal is to not let any of the egg escape from the well, but that doesn’t always work out. Continue until the egg is mostly incorporated into the flour. (At this point I begin using a scraper, then my hands)

Begin kneading the dough. Continue to use scraper to get all of the flour and dough off of the surface and hands. Be sure to also remove anything stuck to the scraper.

The kneading technique: Press the dough away from you with your palm. Fold in half from top down (towards you). Then rotate 45 degrees. Repeat.

Note: If you are using All Purpose Flour, you will most likely need to add flour to get the dough to the correct consistency. I usually add about 2 TBSP additional flour (sprinkle only 1 TBSP at a time onto dough & surface).

If your dough is too dry, you can add water 1 TBSP at a time, though I have never had to do this.

Continue kneading until dough is somewhat smooth and no longer sticking to you.

Form dough into a ball, sprinkle with additional flout and wrap dough in plastic wrap. Let rest for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, set up your pasta maker. You can also use a rolling pin and a whole lot of effort at this point.

Take dough out of plastic wrap.

Smash dough into a flat oval.

Sprinkle with flour. You can also sprinkle a bit of flour into the opening of the pasta maker.

Put pasta maker on the widest setting (mine is #1)

You will put your dough through on that first setting 10 times, but fold dough in towards the middle of itself into 3 before putting it back through the rollers.

Feed back through pasta maker with one of the open ends of dough first (should be one of the shorter ends)

Repeat a total of 10 times.

Turn the knob to change the thickness to the next setting. DO NOT fold the dough. Put it through once.

Turn knob again and repeat until you achieve your desired thickness. I consistently go to #5, which probably isn’t officially correct but I find it the perfect thickness whether I am filling my pasta, or cutting it into Tagliatelle or Pappardelle. I recently tried putting my roller between #5 and #6 because I don’t love the thickness of either. I was super happy with the #5.5 for pappardelle!

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post with some of my favorite filled pasta recipes, as well as a guide to browning butter (my favorite ingredient for sauces).

Looking for pasta recipe inspiration?