Just exactly how do you cook homemade pasta? Does it need to cure? Do you cook it soft? Is it like a dumpling?!
Answers: How diffrent are they from boxed.I want to make some.People who make them please.
2 lg. eggs
pinch of salt
2 c. sifted flour
Sift flour onto a clean, preferably wooden surface. Make a well and drop 2 eggs into the well. Add the salt. With hands, work the flour and egg mixture into a dough, similar to bread dough. Clean surface, dust lightly with flour and knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes until the surface is smooth and elastic. Cut dough into 4 sections. Roll each section one at a time on a flour surface with a floured rolling pin until thin (similar to pie crust.) At this point, use your imagination, cut the pasta into any shapes you desire. The easiest shape for the first time is to cut similar to egg noodles. Place pasta on a clean surface.
Our mothers would put a clean sheet over the bedspread and layer the pasta onto this sheet for drying. Pasta will dry in a very short time. Cook pasta as you would a commercial brand. The cooking time would be less, however; you will have to use judgment by testing. Test pasta by removing 1 or 2 strands from the boiling water with a slotted spoon and tasting. This is where the term al dente comes from; dente meaning tooth.
Just drop them in a pot of boiling water.
When you make fresh homemade pasta, you can say it is soft like a dumpling, yes. Cook it soft, soon after it is made, no curing needed.
It cooks up much faster too, when you boil it. (5-6 mins)
They are really more delicious than the dryed boxed type most buy in the supermarket.
Put pasta in full rolling boiling salted water for 3-5 minutes till done. No it doesn't need to cure, yes cook it soft. Are you putting it thru a pasta maker so that it comes out either in strings or some kind of shape?
A pound of fine white flour (grade 00 if you wish to use Italian flour, or American bread flour, which has slightly more gluten and is thus better because it will make for somewhat firmer pasta)
4 eggs (you can also increase the number of yolks while decreasing the volume of whites proportionally to make richer pasta)
A healthy pinch of salt
Make mound with the flour on your work surface and scoop out a well in the middle.
Pour the eggs into the hole, add the salt, and work the eggs and the flour together till you have a smooth dough, adding just a drop of water if necessary, and no more. Knead the dough for ten to fifteen minutes, until it is smooth, firm, and quite elastic. Don't skimp on the kneading or the dough will tear while you're rolling it out.
You are now ready for the hard part: separate the dough into two pieces. Flour your work surface (the marble counter tops in Italian kitchens are ideal for this, though wood or Formica work as well -- a pastry cloth gets in the way) and start to roll out the dough, rolling from the middle, flipping it occasionally, and flouring it as necessary to keep it from sticking. To keep the sheet from breaking, once it has reached a certain size, roll it up around the rolling pin and then invert the rolling pin; you can, as you are unrolling the sheet, gently stretch it by holding the unrolled part firm and pulling gently away with the rolling pin. Keep on flipping and rolling till you have a sheet that's almost transparent -- as thin as a dime, or thinner, if you can manage it (the pasta will almost double in thickness while cooking). The Emilians, acknowledged masters of home-made pasta, say your backside should work up a sweat as you're rolling out the sheet.
Once you've rolled out the sheet, either use it to make stuffed pasta such as ravioli or tortellini, for lasagna, or cut it into strips. If you choose the latter course the easiest thing to do is roll the sheet of dough up into a tube, then slice the tube into rounds of the desired width and shake the skeet out with your hands to free the strands; set them to dry on a rack or between two chair backs, supported by a towel (you often see this in the country). Roll out the second piece and cut it as you did the first.
Cook the pasta in salted, boiling water. Since it's fresh, it will cook in three to five minutes. Do not let it overcook! Soft wheat flour has much less gluten than the durum wheat used in commercially prepared dry pastas, and will consequently become flabby if it overcooks.
When you make it, be sure to knead the dough thoroughly. If you don't the texture will be off- it won't be elastic enough- and the pasta will be dry. You are supposed to let it dry for a bit, the longer it dries, the longer it will take to cook. Fresh pasta tastes better than boxed in my opinion, but it is a lot of work. I usually use boxed pasta, but make homemade every now and then, especially if I make lasagne.
Really,
there is no difference to bough pasta.
It takes ages to make, very complex and easy to get wrong.
And the price is more expensive.
In most top restaurants chefs will buy their pasta.