How to make fresh pasta

Make homemade pasta this weekend and wow your dinner guests

Pasta is one of my favourite meals to serve up for dinner. My main reasoning for this is that I personally find so much comfort in a bowl of pasta; so many of my earliest and many of my fondest memories are eating a big bowl of noodles on a couch, at a dinner table, at a restaurant, or overlooking a magnificent view. But there's also something so special about serving your dinner guests something you've worked on this hard with your hands. In my opinion, there's no better way to say, "I appreciate you", than something you worked hard on. Below I give you my favourite recipe for slurpable, loveable, beautiful pasta. May it bring you as much pleasure at it has brought me.

Ingredients

- 1 cup durham semolina
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 5 eggs
- 1 egg yolk (I usually keep the white to throw into scrambled eggs the next morning ;) )
- water, as needed

Method

In a large bowl, mix flours and salt with a whisk until evenly combined. Pour onto a work surface and form a wide well with your hands in the center.

Add eggs and egg yolk to the well and whisk with a fork, slowly incorporating parts of the well wall into the center, until pasta dough comes together and is difficult to manuver with the fork.

Knead the pasta dough with your hands, adding water as needed, until it becomes smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes). Cover in plastic and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough into 4 pieces. Remove one and re-wrap the others in the plastic. With a floured rolling pin, flatten the dough until it is about an inch thick.

Flour the flattened dough and set your manual pasta machine to the first setting. Roll your dough through once and then fold a third of the dough into the center from each side. Roll it through the first setting again, non-seam edge first.

Run the dough through the second, then third, then fourth, then fifth setting on the pasta machine. Flour the long dough strip generously, and then roll it gently from one short side to the other.

Cut your pasta into your desired shape (I like a wide, flat pappardelle) with a knife by slicing the pasta dough from the short edge of your tube of dough. Unravel your noodles and toss generously with flour. Alternatively, you may run the dough through your pasta machine's noodle cutter if you have the extension. Be sure to toss with lots of flour to keep the noodles from sticking together.

When it comes time to cook your pasta, bring a large pot of water to boil and dump the noodles in, separating any that have clumped together in the water with a fork or large pronged serving utensil. When the noodles float to the top of the boiling water, they are ready to be drained

Note: if you do not have a pasta machine, you may roll the dough out with a rolling pin. Start from the center of the dough and roll the rolling pin to the top of the dough five times. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat, flipping the dough onto its back once you've done all four corners. Repeat when you have reached desired thickness (usually thinner than you think). I have found that adding a tablespoon of olive oil to the egg mixture at the beggining makes the dough a little more maleable for the rolling pin.