This is an awesome recipe that I got from my friend Rose who actually got this recipe first hand from a local chef in Tuscany, Italy.

The back story

This homemade fresh pasta recipe comes to you directly from the heart of Tuscany, Italy via our friends Dave and  Rose.

When Rose and her husband Dave celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, they made a trip in the fall to Italy for their wonderful milestone. Their last stop on their trip was Tuscany, where they spent a few days at a local B&B.

The plan on one of the days was to go on hike, but because of the rains those plans got cancelled. Instead the Inn offered to give them cooking lessons on how to make pasta and a few other local favorites like tiramisu and ragu.

I invited Rose and Dave to come over for dinner to share some of their new-found Italian culinary knowledge and we turned the evening into an Italian dinner party.  This was a real fun evening with lots of pasta!

A pasta recipe with just two ingredients?

Yes, that’s exactly what this pasta recipe calls for. Just two ingredients! Never ever did I think I could make fresh pasta at home, and that too have it be so easy.  

Takes time but it’s fun 😃

This pasta making dinner is not a quick “lets make dinner” type of evening. This pasta making dinner party takes a little time to prepare but it is so worth it! You will be surprised at how much fun everyone will have and how fast the time goes by.

Fresh Homemade Pasta:
1 batch of pasta dough makes 4 servings of pasta

Ingredients:

• 200g 00 pasta flour or zero flour (about 1.5 cups). If your are wondering what 00 pasta flour is, I have included a short description at the end of this recipe.
• 2 eggs plus yolk of 3rd egg.

Directions:

• On a clean surface place the flour and make a well. Add 2 eggs plus yolk of 3rd egg in well.

• Fold eggs into flour until the eggs are well incorporated into the flour.

• Knead the dough until all lumps are removed and the dough looks smooth.  This takes a lot of muscle and a few minutes! Unlike pastry dough, pasta dough can be kneaded into a smooth texture.  
• Keep extra flour handy to prevent the dough from sticking to your fingers. You can also add a drizzle of olive oil if you like.

• Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes. While the dough was resting we made tiramisu. It took just 15 minutes to make this delicious Italian dessert!  I will post the recipe for this super easy tiramisu.

• After 30 minutes roll dough into a thin sheet. Make sure to flour the surface and the dough generously to prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling pin and the counter.
• You can keep flouring the dough as you roll.  This will take some muscle and a few minutes! 
• The dough should be rolled out into a thin round sheet. You can see in the photos below how thin it should get, almost thin enough to see the counter beneath.

• Once the dough is flattened into a thin sheet, roll the dough into a pipe shape.

• Using a serrated knife cut dough pipe into 1/2 inch pieces.

• Now unroll each little piece into long strips of pasta and set aside on parchment paper.

• This part of the pasta making process is loads of fun. This is when it helps to have more people helping to unroll each piece of pasta.

• Fresh homemade pasta is done!

• Boil water with salt and 1 tbsp olive oil. Add fresh pasta and cook for 6-8 minutes. Pasta will be al-dente but soft inside.

• Serve with pasta sauce or ragù. Recipe for vegetarian ragù to follow in next post.

What is 00 pasta flour?

The answer in a nut shell is this: 00 flour is a type of flour where the flour is ground powder-fine. In addition to how fine the flour is, 00 flour is also generally made from red wheat flour, which has stronger and more elastic gluten in texture thus making pastas and breads firmer.

Here is more information on 00 flour from the web site thekitchn.com What is 00 flour?

“In the US, we categorize flours by how much protein they contain, which directly affects the gluten formation in whatever we’re making. They do it a little differently in Italy and other parts of Europe by categorizing flours based on how finely the flour has been ground. Coarsely-ground type 2 flour is at one end of the spectrum with powder-fine 00 flour at the other.

What gets confusing for some of us non-Europeans is that we assume finely ground 00 flour is probably low-protein (like our finely-ground cake and pastry flour). In fact, the protein content of 00 flour can range quite a bit depending on what kind of wheat it’s ground from. Most 00 flour that we see in the United States is ground from durum wheat and has a mid-range protein content of about 11-12%, similar to all-purpose white flour.

Besides the level of the grind, the other big difference between 00 flour and all-purpose flour is how the gluten in each flour behaves. The gluten from durum wheat flour tends to be strong but not very elastic, while the gluten in red wheat flour is both strong and elastic. This means that with durum wheat, we’ll get a nice bite on our breads and pasta, but not as much chew.”   For more information on 00 flour take a look at this link.”  What is 00 flour?