Actually, that should say, we made homemade pasta and we LOVED it. Throughout the years I’ve always watched some TV chefs from various cooking shows say that homemade pastas are really good. I’ve read the same thought from various cookbooks as well. So I’ve always wanted to try making my own pasta except I didn’t have a pasta maker. I have a Kitchen Aid but I don’t have the pasta maker attachment. I supposed I could’ve used the rolling pin to flatten the dough but using a pasta maker just looks so much fun. Well, that’s all changed now coz my mother-in-law just gave me a stand-in pasta maker. It’s the Atlas Marcato 150 Pasta Maker, plus an extra attatchment for papperdelle (lasagna) maker.
If you’ve noticed I said “WE made…” The original plan was for my daughter and I to make homemade spaghetti noodles. She got so excited when I was making the dough coz she thought I was making sugar cookies. I told her I was making spaghetti instead. Forget the cookies coz she got even more excited upon hearing her favorite pasta dish of all time, bear in mind that she’s only turning 6 in a few days. This girl could eat spaghetti for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner. Kinda like pizza, hah. Then I took the pasta maker out of the box, oh boy was she excited. But then I had to ruin the excitement by explaining that we have to wait for 30 minutes to let the dough rest. So she spent every 5 minutes checking up on me and the kitchen until I finally said we could start making the spaghetti noodles.
Continuing on to the “we” part, it turns out, making homemade pasta is a fun family affair. A messy one that is. Thank goodness Daddy woke up from his nap to help us out. I needed his help so badly, not just making the pasta but so I could somehow take pictures of the process to write about. I missed a couple of pictures because it was just too hard to do things all at once but hopefully I’ve covered most of the steps.
FYI, when you start making your own homemade pasta, make sure you have A LOT of flour. Not just for making the dough but also during the entire process of shaping the noodles. Flour is your bestfriend.
| How-To Make Homemade Pasta |
- 4 cups of flour
- 4 eggs
- some water
- 2 tbsp of olive oil (more if you prefer)
- pasta maker
- extra bowl of flour
- In a clean flat surface, create a mountain-like shape from the flour. Make a hole in the middle. Put the eggs in the middle. Beat the eggs, then slowly mix the flour with the eggs. Use your hands to mix everything together. Soften the dough mixture with olive oil and a little bit of water. Keep kneading the dough until you’re able to form a ball. Sprinkle a little bit of water in between.
- Once you’ve formed a ball, put it in a container then cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or a saran wrap. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
- Start boiling a pot of water for the pasta.
- After the dough has rested, slice the dough in small pieces, slightly flatten with your hand. Then pass one piece of the dough into the pasta maker, starting with the widest opening (knob setting 1). Sprinkle flour on top of the flatten dough, fold in half then pass it through again the roller. Repeat this process several times, lightly sprinkle the sheet of dough before it passes the roller each time. Adjust the knob settings(all the way to 5) as you go along.
- If you don’t have a huge space, don’t hesitate to cut the sheet of dough before shaping the noodles.
- Generously sprinkle flour onto the spaghetti roller, and the platter where you’ll spread out the spaghetti noodles. A pasta drying rack would be nice to have for this part.
- Insert the sheet of pasta into the spaghetti roller, then crank up the roller. At this point, I was rolling the handle, and taking a picture while my husband held the pasta. Team Work!
- Onto a pot of boiling water, slowly drop the noodles to cook. In separate sauce pan, make your spaghetti sauce (browned ground beef, spaghetti sauce, 3 tbsp of sugar, sprinkles of salt, ground basil and ground oregano). Transfer the cooked pasta into the pasta sauce. Gently stir until combined.
With the amount of ingredients to make the dough I’ve actually only used 3 slices of the dough. I saved the remaining two in a ziploc bag and stored them in the fridge to use for fettuccine noodles some other time.
VOILA, spaghetti using homemade pasta. Sprinkle shredded or grated Parmesan cheese. For 
What a wonderful family project – making pasta at home !:)
Wonderful work and the result looks just fabulous – super delicious
Oh my goodness! It is also a dream of mine to make my own pasta, but I don’t know anyone who has a pasta maker (buying one is a bit impractical for us, sadly). Comparing the fresh pasta to the dried ones (the ones bought at a supermarket) – is there a difference to the taste and texture?
Hopping from Food Friday.
@Jenn, with homemade fresh pasta, you won’t get that al dente texture. Fresh pasta has a richer taste coz of the eggs.
That was a lot of hard work and worth it, I suppose, because you ended up having homemade spaghetti, which is a labor of love, and I’m sure it was quite delicious, too!
@Tetcha, I’d rather have the homemade spaghetti noodles with just a simple sauce of butter and herbs but the little girl was all set for the tomato based sauce. It was still a delicious dinner
that is very clever making your own pasta Sis
what a great bonding with the family too 
I am sure the spaghetti is delish 
We have that too sometimes 
Dropping by from FF
oh wow! that’s awesome! lucky you! i have always wanted to have one of those! so sure you all had fun making the dough as well as eating them!
thanks so much for sharing over at Food Friday, Dexie