Homemade Noodles

I've been talking about getting a pasta maker for a few years now. I think I have some kind of pasta maker commitment phobia because I just can't decide which one I want to get.  There are heated online debates about the pros and cons of each one as well as friends' varying opinions.  Rather than make a decision, I made some noodles without a pasta maker for some chicken noodle soup (next post).  I spent a good portion of both Saturday and Sunday getting covered in flour as I tried to improve on the first batch of noodles.  It was worth it.  

My first attempt, I followed a homemade pasta recipe from The Pioneer Woman website.  It was easy, but the noodles weren't exactly what I wanted, which was mostly my fault because I cut them too thick. 

The second time around, I used tips from various recipes as well as from people who commanded their authority on the matter because of Italian ancestry: olive oil in the dough, using 00 flour, rolling the dough out very thin, and cutting the noodles very thin.  This recipe is what I came up with.  It's a basic noodle recipe that you can turn into any kind of dish that you like. 

Note: For increasing or decreasing measurements; it's 2 eggs per 1 1/3 cup of flour.  One egg will generally feed one person; so if you're cooking for 2, it would be 2 eggs and 1 1/3 cup of flour; for 4 people; 4 eggs and 2 2/3 cups of flour, and so on... That's about as much math as I'm willing to do here.  These measurements may also vary depending on how much your company tends to eat ...

Homemade Pasta Noodles

4 eggs
2 2/3 cups "00" flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch of salt

1.  In a bowl or on a cutting board, make a well in the center of a mound of flour.  Crack the eggs into the well.  Add a pinch of salt and the olive oil into the well.

2. Using your hands, combine the egg mixture into the flour until a dough forms and you can roll everything together into a ball.

3.  Break the dough into smaller pieces (it makes it easier to knead) and use your hands to move the dough around in any way you can until it's smooth inside and out (punch it, roll it, knead it, squeeze it, etc).  Repeat with each piece of dough. 

4.  On a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin (also lightly floured) to roll out each piece of dough as thinly as you possibly can.  Use a pizza cutter, a sharp knife, or a bread cutter to cut the noodles into thin lines.   

5.  Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil, with some added olive oil. Cook the noodles for about 4 minutes and drain.

6. Add the noodles to any kind of pasta sauce or soup!



Egg well:

Kneaded dough:

Broken into smaller pieces:

Rolled very thinly: 

Cut into thin noodles:

These noodles are from the first batch I made, which were too thick ... they also came out stiff and gooey. I think cutting the noodles thinner, the 00 flour, and the olive oil in the mixture and in the boiling water all helped to make the second batch much better.