Homemade Pasta

 Ingredients

• 8 oz. Bread Flour
• 8 oz. Semolina Flour
• 5 Eggs 
• 0.5 oz. Olive Oil
• Large Pinch of Salt

Equipment 

• Scale
• Sifter or Whisk
• Fork
• Bench Scraper
• Pasta Roller & Cutter -or- Rolling Pin & Knife

Instructions for making and shaping pasta dough

1. On a large cutting board or flat surface, whisk or sift together flours into a mound. (Tip: if this is your first time making pasta or you are nervous about using a well method, try using a large bowl instead!)
2. Use a measuring cup or glass to make a well in your flour mound.
3. Sprinkle the salt and drizzle the olive oil into the well.
4. Crack the eggs into a small container or bowl.
5. Pour one egg into the well and beat with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour. Continue this process one egg at a time. It helps to use your free hand or bench scrapper to push against the flour wall to help keep it from breaking. If your well does break, you just have to work fast!
6. When all eggs are incorporated, kneed your pasta dough for around five minuets. Use a bench scraper to help scrape up any stuck pasta. Making pasta has a lot to do with how the dough feels... if it is feeling really dry you can add a tablespoon or two of cold water. If your dough is really wet and sticky, try giving it a sprinkle of bread flour while kneading it. 
7. Form dough into a round disk and wrap in plastic wrap or a beeswax wrap, and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. it is important that whatever you wrap the dough in, that it is touching the dough to avoid air forming a skin or oxidizing the dough.
8. When you are ready to form and cut your pasta, remove from the refrigerator and allow the dough to get close to room temp. I like to cut the pasta disk into 4 equal pieces, that way once I am rolling it out, it is a much more manageable size. Any pasta dough that you are not actively using needs to stay covered.
9. The possibilities are endless when it comes to shaping your pasta!

• If you are using a pasta machine, whether it is for an attachment for your stand mixer​ or the hand crank kind, start with your machine at the widest setting. With each pass through the machine decrease the width. Every few passes or if your pasta feels sticky, dust with bread or semolina flour. If your pasta gets too long, use your bench scrapper or a knife to shorten it. When you have reached your desired thickness, it is time to cut your pasta into the shape you want. 
• If you do not have any sort of pasta machine, you can roll your dough using a dusted rolling pin. When you reach your desired thickness, you can cut with a knife or pizza cutter. An easy way to do this is rolling the pasta into a log and cutting thin strips.

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Cooking 

1. Cook your fresh pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly! But it also depends on the thickness of your noodles, so watch it closely. When I make thin, spaghetti  or linguini pasta, it cooks in under a minute!

Storage

• If you want to store your fresh pasta for future use, you can leave it out at room temperature overnight to dry. You can either use a pasta drying rack or place loosely on a sheet pan and sprinkle with plenty of flour.
• Once your pasta is dry, it should snap and not bend. At this point you can store in an airtight container in a cool and dry place for several months. 
• Without drying the pasta, pasta can be stored in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months!

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