Fresh Egg Pasta with Parsley

For my birthday, my wonderful husband bought me a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer … I know, he is pretty wonderful.  I was over the moon with excitement and ideas of things to mix and whip, heck we were still unpacking the box when I started to make Lemon Angel Food Cake!  I’ve had lots of fun, but there is someone who has had just as much, if not more fun with this new toy.  Adam is in love!  Our beautiful Ice colored mixer has been thrown into overdrive, becasue so far it hasn’t just helped us with cakes and cookies, Adam has been baking up a storm with pizza dough (to be posted soon), dinner rolls (yum, and also to be up soon) and the latest fresh pasta!

Have I mentioned how much I love my husband … not only after a day full of Ikea shopping, does he assemble our new furniture in no time flat, but he also kneads … he just loves to knead!

Now, this was the second time making fresh pasta for us, so we are still perfecting our techniques, but this was delicious and worth all these photos!

We started with eggs, flour, olive oil and some finely minced parsley in the bottom of a stand mixer.  Then, using the dough hook we turned the mixer on and waited until everything came together as a slightly moist ball.  We then moved to Adam’s favorite part – kneading.

On a lightly floured surface we kneaded the pasta dough for at least 4 minutes until the dough was pliable, smooth and the texture of suede.  The dough was covered with a kitchen towel and allowed to rest for 20 minutes or so, then we moved over to our brand new mixer, added the pasta roller attachment, made sure the setting was on number one (thickest setting) and started to work the dough through the roller.

After folding, a bit of flour sprinkling and at least 3 or 4 times through the roller attachment on setting one, we slowly worked our way up through the attachment settings, while Marmalade watched as the dough became thinner and thinner. I think she was a little bummed that she wasn’t getting any attention.

Finally, we moved onto the Kitchen Aid cutter attachment and made some fine looking pasta ribbons.  We then lightly floured all that pasta to prevent sticking and hung the strands up on our handy dandy drying rack (Thanks mom!) . The strands waited there for about 30 minutes then took a plunge (in batches) into some boiling salted water.  We finished our pasta off with some butter, freshly ground pepper and Parmesan cheese.

* You can eliminate the parsley from this recipe, it looked pretty and gave a hint of parsley flavor, but not enough to really notice.  If you do decide to include parsley, ensure you have minced it very finely.

Fresh Egg Pasta with Parsley

makes about 3 servings

3 large eggs or more if needed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup minced parsley (optional)

Combine the eggs, parsley and olive oil in a stand mixer using the dough hook. Slowly add all the flour to the ingredients until the dough forms a single mass. (You may have to remove the dough from the hook a few times with a spatula to help the mixer combine the dough). If the dough doesn’t come together into a single mass, you can add another egg yolk and mix the dough a little longer. If it still doesn’t come together, add the egg white. The dough should feel moist to the touch but not too sticky. If the dough is too sticky you can add a little flour to help absorb moisture.

Next, knead the dough by hand. Place the dough on a smooth floured surface and knead for 3-4 minutes until the dough is smooth and a texture similar to suede. After kneading, cover the dough with a towel and allow the dough to rest about 20 minutes then cut the dough into 4 equal parts to get the dough into manageable chunks for rolling. The next step is to roll out the dough using the mixer’s dough roller attachment. Begin rolling with the widest setting, then fold the dough in half and repeat; this folding helps to ensure the dough is thoroughly kneaded. Only fold the dough on the rollers widest setting. After putting the dough through the widest setting 2-3 times, adjust the knob to the next narrower setting until you reach the third or second narrowest setting. We stopped at setting 4-5. (If the dough becomes too long to handle you can cut it in half to make it easier to roll).

Next, cut the pasta into the desired shape for your recipe using your mixer’s dough cutting attachment. We wanted wider pasta ribbons so we used our fettuccine cutter. After cutting the dough, dust the pasta ribbons liberally with flour to help keep them from sticking together. If you don’t have a pasta rack you can arrange the pasta ribbons into large mounds on a sheet pan, making sure you toss the mound every 10 minutes for about an hour, to let the noodles dry a little before cooking and keep them from sticking together.

*Makes about 1 1/4 Pounds of dough, enough for 4 first-course servings or 3 main-course servings

Cooking Fresh Pasta

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to help keep the noodles from sticking while they are cooking. Once at a rolling boil, liberally add salt to the water. Shake the pasta before placing it into the boiling water to remove excess flour and place into the pot in batches. Fresh pasta cooks quite rapidly so taste the pasta every 30 seconds or so until the pasta has reached al dente.

Adapted From: Cooking “600 recipes, 1500 photographs, one kitchen education” James Peterson Ten Speed Press, 2007