[Sca-cooks] handmade pasta

[Liz Courts]

Ah!!!!  Homemade pasta.  Belle Vida to the homemade pasta!!!!

First I feel that I need to identify myself.  My name is Robert 
Andrade--(Mundanely of course)  I am Portugese/Italian.  I was literally 
raised in the Kitchen; both my mothers kitchen where I learned how to 
make traditional dishes from Portugal or in my Italian Uncles home 
learning how to make traditional Italian dishes...Including Pasta!!!!  
(You must'a love the Pasta!!!  hehe)

Now there are many ways to make Pasta but they usually include a dry 
good (Flour--Unbleached or Semolina) and a Liquid (Olive Oil, Water and 
or Eggs). The one I prefer uses eggs and unbleached flour. 3 large eggs 
for 2 cups of unbleached flour works well. Now, what you need to do, is 
clean off a flat surface in your kitchen (make sure you have enough room 
to work in). You are going to take your dry good and plop it on your 
working surface and sculpt it into a bowl, all the time loving the 
flour. Crack your 3 eggs (which you have cultivated into room 
temperature), whites and all, into the bowl, have fork in hand, and 
begin mixing the eggs like you are making scrambled eggs. Keeping the 
integrity of your well-loved flour bowl with your free hand, after the 
eggs have been lovingly mixed together, you gently and slowly 
incorporate the flour from the inside of your well-loved bowl. This you 
must keep doing until your mixture has reached the consistency of a soft 
dough ready for your loving guidance. The most important teaching tool 
you could have at this moment is a pasta turner (also known as a dough 
scraper, a flat piece of metal with a wooden handle) - extremely 
important! Now, you must make sure that you flour your working surface 
because the soft dough will be sticky, and the flour will greater assist 
your loving care. With your pasta turner, that wonderful teaching tool, 
you will begin to fold the soft dough continuously adding sparse amounts 
of flour to the dough, until the dough is no longer sticky. At this 
fantastic, wonderful stage in the dough's life, GET RID OF THE PASTA 
TURNER. It is time for your hands, yes I said your hands, for you will 
knead this dough (starting as close to you as possible on your work 
surface and kneading it away from you). One must remember to constantly 
keep the hands floured, otherwise you will have a dough glove, and this 
is not what you want, for you are trying to make pasta, not winter garb. 
Continue kneading until the dough has reached a stage of elasticity (you 
will know this when you take your dough, form it into a ball, and poke 
it with a finger, any finger will do, if you fingermade hole remains, it 
is pasta dough!). At this stage, you must do the one thing that true 
pasta-makers fear and loathe: let it rest and wait a few minutes (I hate 
this part!). But this shall soon pass. Now I realize, as you are sitting 
there looking at that ball of dough, you are wondering to yourself, "How 
could I possibly feed my family?" Ah-hah! Pick up the dough, feel the 
weight and density of the dough, admire your work, even, for you are 
taking part in a tradition that is thousands of years old. Make sure 
that you have a very sharp knife (yes I said knife, I realize this), for 
what you will do is slice into your pasta ball (or whatever form you 
have desired) into four sections.

Now comes the interesting part. There are many ways to do what I am 
about to tell you next. I will tell you the two that I know -
1.) A rolling pin (or a tall wine bottle, etc.) and guide your slice of 
pasta into a thin, long form, remembering to flour the surface of your 
pasta dough as required. When you have reached the length that you would 
like, roll your freshly loved and stretched and guided pasta dough 
jelly-roll style (be certain that you have used enough flour to keep the 
jelly roll from becoming a permanent form). Take an extremely 
well-sharpened knife and cut the jelly-roll into strands to the width 
that you desire. Unroll the strands, hand to dry, or cook them 
immediately as you would regular pasta.
2.) After you have sliced your pasta dough ball into four ready-to-use 
slices, having a hand pasta machine at hand will make life much easier 
for you. I prefer the Villaware Imperia 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/b00004spdh/104-5119316-3313515?v=glance) 
brand, made in Italy, which you can find at most kitchen supply stores 
at a wonderfully reasonable price. It comes with wonderful directions on 
how to use it and many wonderful attachments as well.

The beauty of making homemade pasta is that you are spending time in the 
kitchen making something with love, and this will show in the pasta. You 
will find a pasta denser than store-bought (which I will cover in a 
moment) and you will also find that it will take less to satiate your 
appetite.

I realize that most of us who live in the mundane world have things to 
worry about like jobs and bills and things of that nature and the curses 
of the mundane life do not always allow for us to spend quality time in 
the kitchen. I suffer from this as well, sometimes. If I find that I 
truly desire pasta and the curses prevent me from making it myself, I 
seek out premade pasta that ONLY have the following ingredients: durum 
wheat flour (semolina) and water. If it has anything else, like those 
wonderfully confusing unpronouncable ingredients, I throw it out! I hope 
that this has helped answer anyone's questions.

Yours truly,
Robert Andrade (a true pasta lover)