If you love fresh tasty pasta you gotta make it yourself but the question that lingers is – How to Make Perfect Pasta?
Sometimes we get it all wrong when we think that whipping the best batch of silky-smooth fettuccine is meant for the pros.
Well, making perfect pasta is pretty simple and doesn’t require professional skills. With a few practices here and there you will be amazed at what you can achieve.
When it comes to pasta making, the several series of instructors can be very confusing. In fact, chances are, you will get more disoriented after doing a quick search through the pasta recipes, ingredients recommended and the ratios.
Well, let me make it pretty simple for you. There is nothing called the perfect pasta nor does it exist. That doesn’t mean there is no difference between the watery stuff that just breaks your mood and the silky-smooth tasty pasta.
What I actually mean is that there are hundreds if not thousands of pasta types that exist. Feeling completely ripped after trying it all and you don’t seem to get there? Well, pasta comes in different shapes, texture, and shapes.
Most importantly, there are perhaps a hundred plus styles for mixing the ingredients. Therefore, we cannot settle on one pasta type and simply rebrand it as the best. We could perhaps be insane to do that!
Table of Contents
Steps to Make Perfect Pasta
Well, let me take you through the science of pasta making and break down the main steps as follows:
- Ingredients
- Mixing & kneading the dough
- Resting dough
- Rolling
- Cooking
Well, before we go into that, I guess it is better to know what we need to make pasta. Even though there are several pasta making tools existing in the market today, many of them are completely unnecessary.
As long as you got eggs, flour, a rolling pin, and a working surface, you are good to go.
Ingredients
We all know that the basic ingredients for making pasta include flour and water. The other manipulations such as eggs to yolk to white ratio, salt, olive oil and much more are just beyond the basics.
What am going to talk about is the flour because it is the major ingredient here and therefore determines the end results. Flours are categorized into:
- All-purpose flour
- Semolina
For the purpose of this guide, I am going to use all-purpose flour. You can dig deeper and understand much more. However, kindly note that most folks use a mixture of type “00” flour and semolina.
Eggs and Oil
The debate over white eggs, egg yolks, and oil will definitely vary across pasta makers. However, pasta made with both of them gains more golden color, flavor and doesn’t break apart easily.
Olive oil, on the other hand, makes for the softer and mushier recipes. Assume I have the following ingredients:
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 2 egg whites (beaten)
- 2 egg yolks (beaten)
- ½ tablespoon water
- Large pinch of salt
The procedure for making Perfect Pasta
- Mix everything together, the flour, salt, and the eggs on the working surface. If you have a mixer the work will be much simpler.
- Alternatively, you can use a fork to combine the eggs and the flour. Mix the dough with hands until it gets clumpy.
- Make circular motions using your fingertips while stirring the flour. Stir until you achieve a dough you can bring together.
- Add more water if the dough is too dry and more flour if it is too soft. Continue kneading to the point where the dough springs back when poked.
- Wrap the dough in a damp cloth and allow one or two hours of rest.
- Next, unwrap the dough and flatten it. Focus on one edge so the pasta can be rolled through the pasta maker
- Set up your best pasta machine by dusting it with semolina and clamping to its position. Now adjust the thickness settings to the widest.
- Run the dough through the machine repeating the process in each setting for a smoother silky pasta.
- Repeat the process as you adjust the settings to the thinnest. Dust the rollers and your hands to avoid the pasta from sticking.
- When you finally get the pasta of your desired thickness, use the cutting attachment to cut the pasta into strips.
- When you have made enough of these strips, hand them on a pasta hanger and allow them to dry.
- You can decide to cook them or store them in the freezer.
Well, that is the complete procedure for making the perfect pasta. Within a few weeks into practicing the same, you will become a pro and develop intuitive pasta making skills. All the best!