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HOMEMADE SPAGHETTI 3 c. all-purpose flour 4 eggs 1 tsp. salt 1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 Tbsp. lukewarm water or milk Put flour on flat surface or in bowl and form a well deep enough to hold eggs. Keep sides high enough to prevent eggs from running out. Break eggs into well. Add other ingredients. (For heavier pasta, meant for stuffing, add milk instead of water.) With small wooden fork or whisk, beat eggs lightly, beginning to pick up a little flour from inside well with fork or whisk. Keep adding flour until eggs are no longer runny. If dough is too sticky to handle, add a little more flour. With your hands, bring all flour from outside of well toward center and make a ball with the dough. After some mixing, dough will be soft. If still sticky, pick up between your hands and mix further. Put ball of dough on flat surface and, with heel of hand, push down firmly into center. Give dough a slight turn, and push down again. Knead for 10 to 12 minutes. Dough should be smooth and satiny and not tough. Once dough is kneaded into smooth ball, cover with bowl or tea towel and let rest for about 15 minutes. Divide in half, if too large for space you have to roll it out. Dust a clean surface lightly with flour. Put ball of dough on surface and, with rolling pin, begin to flatten by rolling forward first and then backwards away from you. With each roll, rotate dough 1/4 turn, so that it opens into a regular circle. One way is to curl the forward edge of dough around rolling pin, and roll it away from yourself, or to curl back edge around and roll it away from yourself, thus stretch- ing dough. Use a heavy rolling pin and work on a patterned surface. Roll dough out thinner and thinner until you can see pattern on surface through dough. If you let dough stay too thick, it will take longer to cook and will not be tender. To make fettucine or any of the string pasta, roll pasta sheet up tightly as you would a jellyroll. Hold roll with one hand, and slice to desired thickness with the other, being careful not to smash roll. When you are finished, open out noodles with both hands and put them on a lightly floured towel to dry for several minutes. You may want to substitute corn- meal for flour. Cooking The Pasta: Use a large vessel and a lot of cooking water. General- ly, allow 4 quarts water to 1 pound pasta. Heat water over high heat and bring to a rolling boil. Boil water for several minutes before putting in pasta. Add 1 tablespoon oil as water approaches a boil, to help separate strands of pasta. This also helps keep cooking water from boiling over. When water is at a rolling boil, add approximately 1 1/2 tablespoons salt for every 4 quarts water. Put pasta in all at once. Stir immedi- ately and frequently with wooden fork. When strands are fully separated, stop stirring continuously, but do stir every minute or so. After a few minutes, take out a strand of pasta and test it. "Al dente": means firm to the bite, and is the way Ital- ians eat pasta. Remember that even in the draining process, the water is so hot that once the pot is removed from the stove, the pasta is still cooking. Even while putting the sauce on it, it is still cooking. Do not run pasta under cold water. Put in colander; shake colander to remove as much liquid as possible and return to pan in which it was cooked. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons butter, then toss lightly and sauce it. Overcooking pasta destroys texture, so make sure it is "al dente". Pasta waits for no one. As soon as it is cooked, drained and sauced, serve it! Yield: 7 to 8 servings, 1 1/2 pounds. This is a recipe from our database at Cookbooks On/Line! 1,000,000+ free recipes and free software at: http://www.cookbooks.com Accuracy is believed to be good, but is not guaranteed. This recipe posting is intended for personal use only. You can print a copy for yourself and/or your friends, but you cannot publish it or post it to any Internet or other public site without our permission. |