Pasta

from the Touch Family Recipes

				Pasta
			      Joe Touch

This is a basic pasta recipe. Nothing magic, but the core of a few
other recipes on this site, so I included it.

Ingredients are given as a ratio; measure by how many eggs you
make. We usually make 6 eggs at a time. A good metric is "an egg per
person and two for the pot", i.e., it's sort of like making tea, but
not ;-)

	1 cup flour 	(we used Gold Medal all-purpose white flour,
			nothing fancy)
	1 egg		(usually a large one)
	1 TBSP water	(cool, i.e., cool tap water is fine)
	
You can make this on a tabletop, e.g., a butcherblock counter,
formica, etc.  Our family had a large round pasta board (hardwood,
around 4 feet in diameter), but it's a LOT of work and cleanup that
way.

I made it in a KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook, much to the horror
of my Nonni (Italian for grandma, i.e., nonna, but diminutive in our
family), my mother's mother. Here's how:

	add all ingredients to the mixer; no more than 6 eggs for the
	usual bowl size
	
	mix on slow until incorporated; it'll ball up around the hook
	AND clean the bowl sides if you do it right. if not, add more
	water or flour as needed (NOT MUCH!)
	
Here's the *secret* step:

	turn off the mixer and wait 15 minutes
	
If you don't, it'll be like working a rubber band. If you do, the
gluten will develop and it'll be nice and smooth.

At this point you can:

	- roll it and cut it into spaghetti or fettucini

		KitchenAid makes rollers/cutters for this purpose, or
		you can get a hand-crank version for the
		counter. Nonni used to roll it by hand, but I never
		got the hang of that, and prefer to use electrical
		appliances anyway.
		
		the trick with the rollers is not to go too thin too
		fast; cut a slice off the doughball, pat it with
		flour, and pinch it to around 1/4" flat - only THEN
		should you put it through the roller, at its most open
		setting. then run it through again, but adjust the
		thickness knob down 2 notches at a time.
		
		for spaghetti, stop at the next-to-last notch or one
		before that then run it through the thin cutters
		
		for linguini, stop at the last or next-to-last notch -
		a little thinner than spaghetti - then run it through
		the wide cutters (1/4")
		
		you can also cut them with a knife - flour the rolled
		pasta sheet and fold it over a few times, then slice
		with a dry knife dipped in flour
		
		you can go fairly heavy with flour dusting, esp. when
		the dough is cut.
		
		I tend to toss it out in some loose flour to coat the
		cut edges, and lay it in gentle mounds about the size
		of a cupped palm on a floured baking sheet; freeze the
		result, then pop the mounds off and put into a plastic
		baggie in the freezer.
		
		FREEZES VERY WELL - over a year. It's hard to
		freezer-burn it; that just dries out the pasta.
		
		you can dry it out on the counter too, but be careful;
		if the air is moist, this will end up making balls of
		goo.
		
		I still keep dried pasta in the freezer, though. I
		don't know how the egg part keeps if just dried in the
		cupboard.
	
	- use it for filled pasta, such as ravioli or capelletti

		roll it fairly thin, but NOT to the thinnest setting;
		if you do, the pasta will tear when you fill it
		
		NOTE - filled pasta should have the dough a little
		sticky, so go easy on the flour dusting. make sure the
		dough doesn't stick to the rollers, but go LIGHT
		otherwise. if it isn't a little damp to the touch, the
		surfaces won't stick and seal the filling in!