The all purposeful pasta dough

Enjoying a bowl of pasta is not hard. I love pasta. So much. I can always be in the mood for it, but to make it homemade can be a process; however, it is a pleasurable one if you lean into it.

Pasta can be made with or without a machine. Depends on how much muscle you're willing to give!

Sharing pasta recipes or receiving them is always a bit of a risk, primarily because chefs are always changing and adapting them. Pasta making is a very fluid process, literally and figuratively. The dough is also incredibly dependent on environment and feel. Your humidity levels change how any dough comes to form. It isn't something we necessarily take note of, or realize to think about, but the water in the air depending on where you live or the temperatures that day affects how your dough takes shape, and essentially how it bakes. You may notice that's why some days are better than others, even if you used the same exact measurements. It is not only to do with oven heat, as I always preface, but to also do with your environment. Now, that's getting technical with cooking, and some really take it into consideration, others like myself, will realize and understand that is what's at play, but at the end of the day, your result will still be satisfying. If you're going to dive into making your own fresh batch of pasta (highly recommend, so much healthier and tastier), I definitely suggest making sure you have semolina handy. I use semolina mainly for the dusting process. Very little do I use it as the main flour in pasta dough recipes such as, capunti, because I tend to use Type 00 or All Purpose flours for long strand pastas such as, linguine, fettucine, spaghetti, and stuffed pastas like, ravioli. You can get away with these flours for the dusting, if desperate, but semolina or any sort of coarse durum wheat makes it that much better. It aids in being a non-stick flour more effectively, and that is what you want to make sure of, because pasta strands or shapes can quickly stick to one another or your drying sheet/surface and you don't want that.

I've found my handful of pasta recipes that I turn to, but I don't necessarily rely on only one. One of my favorite pasta makers who creates beautiful and artisanal dishes is Pasta Social Club. Her page is swoon worthy. I usually stick to the basic flour, three eggs and a little salt method, but it can also come down to what shape of pasta you are aiming for and what's available in your pantry. For instance some egg pastas, also known as pasta all'uovo, call for more eggs and egg yolks, whilst other recipes use less eggs, or are solely water based and require no eggs. I've done my fair amount of research to find the best recipes that I can save in my rolodex, but it doesn't stop there. It comes down to practice. The more you roll and thread pasta, the better and more comfortable you will become with the technique. It is cumbersome, but very rewarding, because who doesn't love pasta, and who doesn't love something homemade. Eating your own fresh pasta is the most delectable thing. Generally egg pasta doughs are used for most stuffed pastas such as, ravioli and tortellini, as well as long strand pastas like fettuccine, linguine, tagliatelle, spaghetti, etc. Water based pasta dough is generally for 'dragged' and short hand formed shapes like capunti, orecchiette, cavatelli. It's quite something when you realize that making pasta is extremely simple in ingredients, but it is very specific in method and technique. You don't want to just make any old pasta dough, you want a good one. The below two images show the difference between an egg based and a water based dough. The latter using only semolina and water to create the short hand capunti shape pasta.

Pasta dough is effort and you will be slow to start with, because it is an unknowing journey. You don't quite know what to expect when you're new to it. Trust me. It works best on a clean counter top or wooden board, not necessarily in a bowl - though you can begin by doing the initial mixing in a bowl if you're too scared about the eggs running; however, that is half the fun and exhilaration when mixing directly on the counter or board! The key to remember is start slow, always. Even if you're an expect, the beginning stage should be slow and thoughtful. That way you do avoid the eggs running from the sides and scrambling (literally) to scrape everything in quick enough, but regardless, do be prepared for a messy job. It ain't supposed to be neat.

I love kneading. It is therapy. For me, you can plug music in, and get lost in kneading, removing yourself from the world for a moment. It's just you and your dough. I love to see dough come together, I think mostly because it starts as something so undefined and so separate that you're slowly bringing things together to form a ball and it's a journey to get there, all the while making sure it is a perfect texture or the right tone for whatever it is you're making. At the end of the day, it's always all about texture. It has to set right. It is important to use recipes as a guide, but to follow your instincts on something that might be needed more or less of. For instance, I am always finding I have to wet my palms as I knead my pasta dough a couple of times before I get that perfect satin-like sturdy ball, because though the measurements are correct, my dough is never as ready as the recipes make it seem without using some water to bind it together smoothly. Often times you may need a little more flour too, because your eggs could have been larger than what your recipes have been created against. Egg size does matter too. So that alters everything for you. Recipes never state the size of egg they use, I have actually never ever seen it written before, but typically I always use large sized eggs and that is the standard, but your large eggs may be larger or smaller than my large eggs. I am going into the whole egg gate, but you get my drift. Every weight and size matters, so that will end up affecting if you need more flour or a little bit of water to help even out the binding, as you knead. And, like I always state with doughs, bread or pasta, kneading is a pleasurable process. You need to lean into it and give it its time. It shouldn't be rushed, it should be massaged with the weight of your palms, so that the gluten is activating and working. Gluten is everything. That's the measure of taste and it is an important piece of this puzzle, followed by the resting period, similar to a proofing period for breads, but without the yeast.

I decided not to go head on into the history of pasta in this post, primarily because I didn't have a starting ground. Pasta has an ancient history and its origins aren't solidified, there are reports that it came to Italy by way of China, and I do think noodles are the first form of pasta, but the way it reached Europe is still unclear. For me, focusing on the method of making pasta and the pleasure of creating something from scratch was all I needed for this post and I hope you enjoy that too. Pasta is global. There are many forms of pasta, and they all have their own history, but my focus is how it is a plate of comfort, and we all need comfort in our lives. Comfort is magic.