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6 Comments Making pasta at home is really not very complicated and quite fun to do. How to make pasta at home!
Homemade pasta
I’ve been wanting to have one for a while; a real pasta machine… Once.. a couple of years ago I followed a workshop on making pasta. That was not a success. Far too many people where crammed into one space with just a handful of pasta machines. The result? I was convinced that making your own pasta was difficult and not worth the trouble. Until Charlotte suggested we try her machine (which needed some serious dusting before we could use it) and make our own pasta.
Hottest day of the year
It was on the hottest day of the year and we were sweating in the kitchen but apart from the fact that we had a lot of fun doing it the homemade pasta was also quite tasty and not at all difficult. So I wanted to have a machine too. And as luck would have it I have a Kitchen Aid and there is a handy attachment for the Kitchen Aid to make pasta. It does the turning itself and that makes homemade pasta with one person a lot easier.
KitchenAid attachment
And – such coincidence – it was also my birthday, so Tom got me a pretty attachment for my Kitchen Aid. To make my own pasta. So of course Charlotte and I set a date to make some homemade pasta (why change a winning team right?) and we set out to make our pasta. The dough came together in a few minutes. I still had some 00 flour lying around, eggs thrown in and start the kneading. I kind of forgot that that is the part that takes a bit of work, but if you need some extra exercise or need to get rid of some frustrations; perfect!
Resting the dough
And while the dough was resting we could cook and bake some other delicious things for dinner and after about 1,5 hours we could start turning the dough. As you can see… the first attempt left something to be desired… 😉 I had to kind of get to known the machine and how to handle the dough but once we got the hang of it, it was very simple.
Machine makes it easier
And the turning of the dough was so much easier with the KitchenAid than it was with the hand machine. Biggest advantage? You have two hands available for guiding the dough through the machine. Of course you have that as well if you’re with more than one person but still it’s handy that you can also do this alone. We chose to make spaghetti this time.
In the package there are three rollers; one for lasagna sheets and kneading the dough, one for spaghetti and one for tagliatelle. We did make the spaghetti a little bit too long. Spaghetti of about a meter is maybe a bit too much.. Lol… It gets entangled and becomes hard to mix with anything!
Pasta trapanese
The pasta itself was really good. I picked a simple recipe from Jamie (as in Jamie Oliver) because it seemed a good choice for fresh pasta. And I had test the cooking times as well, as fresh pasta literally takes a few minutes to make. But of course the thickness of the home made pasta determines the final cooking time. Three minutes in our case.
Made your spaghetti. Now what?
Of course the spaghetti itself needs a bit dressing up. Here are some delicious things to make with it:
Homemade pasta
Equipment
- 1 Pasta machine
How to make pasta at home
PASTA
- To make the dough for the pasta you need to put the flour into a large bowl and make a dent in the middle so you have a nest to break the eggs in. Use a fork to mix the eggs with the dough until it is firm enough to start kneading. Knead until it is a soft and pliable dough that is not too sticky.
- Wrap the ball in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 1,5 hours
- Remove from the fridge and divide into smaller pieces. Keep whatever you are not using in the plastic so it doesn’t dry out.
- Knead it for a bit and flatten it with a rolling pin so you can put it through the pasta machine.
- Keep working the pasta by folding it and putting it through again for as long as it takes to get a really smooth and nice dough. Put the roller on a thinner number as you go along until it is thin enough.
- Dust your pasta with flour to make sure it will not stick and than roll it through the spaghetti cutter. Leave to dry on a drying rack and cook until al dente (depending on the size of your pasta but mine took 3 minutes to cook
Nutrition Information per portion:
Disclaimer:
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
Kitchenaid has added a set of two more pasta cutters attachment (KPCA), Angel Hair and Thick Noodle. Kitchenaid has also added a Pasta Press extruder (KPEXTA) attachment to the line capable of making 6 different types of pasta (spaghetti, large macaroni, small macaroni, bucatini, rigatoni and fusilli).
With the standard roller pasta cutters you can add all types of seeds, herbs and spices to your pasta which you cannot do with the pasta press (extruder) because they will get stuck in the extruder form plates. However you can add liquid (tomato juice) to pasta being made in the pasta press (extruder). Think tomato basil pasta or cracked black pepper pasta or garlic pesto pasta. Just make sure you use each type of pasta maker attachment within the confines of what it can do and the culinary world is wide open to your imagination.
I have a Cuisinart® Prep 11 cup Plus™ food processor and I use it to make my pasta dough. It takes about 6 pulses of the machine to form a 1 lb. dough ball (less than 3 minutes) which I take out, knead for a minute and wrap in cling-wrap letting rest in refrigerator for 20 minutes before finish kneading till silky smooth and processing through the Kitchenaid pasta maker.
Fresh pasta takes about 3-4 minutes to cook and dried pasta takes up to 20 minutes to cook; after draining always add the warm pasta to the finished hot accompanying sauce so it will be fully coated with sauce.
Your pasta looks lovely! I miss my KA attachment :). I never dry my noodles before cooking them. In fact, many Italians only dry their noodles if they plan to cook them later. Just throw the pasta in boiling water for 3-4 minutes right after you’re done making them! 🙂
O that’s good to know! I wasn’t sure but than we were making them ahead so I had to leave them somewhere anyway, so it’s a good thing you can dry them… But I didn’t know it’s not absolutely necessary… Thanks for the tip!
I love making pasta! Made some last week, in fact, and was going to make it this week but we decided to go out to dinner instead — to an Italian place where we had pasta! It does take a bit of practice to get it right. I have the hand crank machine, and it does take some juggling to crank and guide the pasta at the same time, although once you get the hang of it, it works fine. That KA attachment looks wonderful, though!
I have the KA pasta attachment also, my first results also looked the same! I don’t practice often enough for sure. I have plans tomorrow to do homemade semolina pasta, I will make sure not to make my noodles to long though!
I don’t make pasta often enough. I should get one of those fancy pasta thingos for the kitchenaid. I have the hand cranked one.