Homemade Dough

The secret to any good dough is the preparation. There are many different ways of making dough....here is mine. Pasta dough is a very good conductor of flavor where you can go simple as we will bellow or add things to the dough to make the flavors pop like spinach or roasted peppers. With all the different variations the starting point is always the same for me....

4 Cups of All Purpose Flour

1 Cup of Ricotta

2 Eggs

1 Cup of Water

(Total Prep Time 20 minutes, 20 minutes inactive)

Using your stand mixer or a bowl put 2 Cups of Flour

Add 1 cup of ricotta

Add 1 cup of water

Add 2 Eggs

Add the remaining 2 cups of Flour...By making "Sandwich" it will help your ingredients mix better

Mix on LOW for about 60 seconds

Once you start to see a ball starting to form you can crank it up to medium

Once the ball has completely formed (about 5 to 7 minutes)

Dust your tabletop generously with Flour

Place your dough over on your board

Kneed you dough by folding it into itself until you get a "smooth" layer on the bottom

Place your dough in a zip-lock bag and place in you refrigerator for about 10 minutes. This will help you because it will make the dough a bit sturdier.

This next step can be done with either a rolling pin or this AWESOME machine

(we bought for 65 buck well worth it)

Take flour off from refrigerator and work some more to get it back to a ball shape.

I use a pizza cutter to cut the dough this is easier than using a knife.

Divide the dough into about 6 pieces.

In Decending order pass your pieces thru until you get a desired thickness. From here you can make lasagna sheets, Spaghetti, Fettuccine or even use the dough for Ravioli. For today we will make Fettuccine

As you get your sheets of dough to the right thickness it is a good thing to let them hang to dry a little bit as if you were to boil these right now they will just form a ball of pasta and that is never good. To dry pasta just take a broom or mop stick lay it secured between two chairs or in this case a dishwasher and a cabinet. Drape a tablecloth or a clean towel and place sheets as pictured above. Keep an eye on them as if they are too long the weight and gravity may break them so keep them small. the Drying process depending on humidity should only take 20 minutes.

Cook them right away or freeze them and save them for a later date. Either way you will not get fresher pasta than this.

Thank you for taking your time to read this. If you have any comments please post them. Questions, suggestions, hate mail, fan mail or anything you can write to me CookingMyBrain@hotmail.com.

See you later

Leo