Homemade Pasta

You honestly don’t know what you’re missing (unless you do!)—there is nothing like fresh, homemade pasta. Unlike the dried stuff, homemade pasta is very soft and flavorful, and contrary to what you may think, is actually one of the easiest things to make—requiring less time and effort than cookies—and you don’t even need any special pasta equipment if you don’t have it. Of course, my recipes use safe, ancient grains instead of common wheat, and as such these will not give you stomachaches or contribute to metabolic disease. This recipe makes a surprising amount—enough to feed 3-5 full grown adults. I based this on Bon Appetit’s pasta recipe, but used spelt flour, and works great with einkorn, kamut, and other safe grains as well. This is especially wonderful in homemade chicken soup done the right way. A restaurant could charge $40 a bowl for this kind of food. You can use a pasta sheeter and extruders if you want to get very professional, but you can also make it with whatever tools you already have in your kitchen. Many fresh pasta recipes are often done wrong, even the old version of this one was too—do NOT put things like olive oil or salt in your pasta dough! It will not only make it harder to work with, it changes the final result. Salt hardens gluten so adding salt to dough makes it tougher and harder to work with. Since homemade pasta dough needs to be rolled thinly the addition of salt makes this very hard to do. Oil also blocks water uptake by gluten and for dough to absorb all the liquid from the egg there must be no oil. The dough’s seasoning comes from the salted boiling water (so make sure you salt it enough).

HOMEMADE PASTA

2 cups spelt, einkorn, or kamut flour
3 large eggs
2 tbsp salt for boiling water

No prep bowls for this one! Instead, pile the flour directly onto your countertop. Make a well in the middle of the flour so it looks like a little volcano. Add all three eggs into the crater. Using a fork, gently beat and mix the eggs until it comes together, then start slowing pulling in the flour a little at a time. No need to be precious about it, but this method helps to slowly incorporate the flour so the gluten gets evenly and slowly saturated. If you use a machine, the dough will be too tough and won’t roll easily. When the dough starts to come together you can switch to using your hands to finish it off. Don’t be impatient—safe flours take longer for moisture to saturate, so you're working with time here, not strength. It’s helpful at this point to use a dough scraper to release the sticky parts from the counter. If the dough is sticky add a very small amount of flour a little at a time until it no longer sticks but is still very, very soft. Conversely, if the dough starts to feel very dry, stop incorporating flour and set the remainder aside for rolling.

Once the dough comes together roll into a ball, flatten a little, and cover tightly. Allow to rest at room temperature at least 15 minutes (it’s important to let it rest for the gluten to soak up all the moisture properly and for the gluten to relax). While the dough is resting you can prepare your sauces, chicken soup, or stroganoff, or whatever you’re making. If making pasta the sauce must be prepared at the same time or immediately before the pasta, which are cooked together for best results.

Once the dough has rested, start a large pot of about 2 liters of water boiling (add the salt), then lightly flour your workspace. I like to pre-roll the dough a little away from the floured surface to get it flattened, then flour both sides and place it on the floured surface and continue rolling into large rectangle. The dough will only want to stretch so far—when it feels tight let it rest for a few moments. This will allow the gluten to relax again and make rolling (or sheeting) easier. Once the dough is rolled thinly sprinkle a thin layer of flour across the entire surface and spread with your hands, making sure there are no wet spots the dough can stick to itself. Starting on the long side fold the dough over itself about 1.5-2 inches, lightly flour the top of that fold, then repeat until the dough is all wrapped up. Using a knife cut dough into desired sizes (fehttuchini, linguine, pappardelle, etc.). Unroll and set aside. Bring pasta sauce to a simmer. Toss all the pasta in at once. After the water comes back to a boil let cook for 2 minutes, spoon one ladle of pasta water into your sauce then transfer all pasta to the simmering sauce. Cook until sauce thickens, then serve immediately (always top pasta with high quality cheese).