I’ve never made homemade pasta before, so this was a very interesting experience. It was going well until it came time to roll out the pasta. I don’t have a pasta roller, so I had to do it by hand. It was the most intense workout I have had since being at home. It was so hard to get the pasta thin enough. I had to keep turning the dough so that it would be somewhat rectangular. I ended up giving up after about half an hour. This meant that my noodles weren’t all the same shape and were fairly thick. Since this was my first time making homemade pasta, I wasn’t entirely sure how long to cook it for. I tested a few noodles by cooking them for 2 minutes, and they were perfect. When I cooked the rest of the noodles some of them were slightly more al dente than others. Since they were irregular in shape and thickness, they didn’t have a uniform cooking time. Thankfully the pesto masked the extreme al dente-ness of some of the noodles. Overall, this was a great experience and I would make pasta again, but a pasta roller would certainly be helpful.
Pasta recipe:
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Mix the eggs, flour, oil, and salt in a stand mixer with your hands until a shaggy dough forms. Knead with a dough hook for about 10 minutes. Cover dough with plastic and rest for at least 30 minutes. Roll the dough as thin as possible without tearing. Cut the dough into ½ inch wide strips. Bring heavily salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta for 2-3 minutes until al dente. Remove from water and reserve ¼ cup of pasta water.
Pesto sauce recipe:
1 cup chard leaves stems removed
3 cloves garlic, peeled
4 tablespoons pine nuts
⅓ cup freshly grated parmesan
⅓ cup olive oil
Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
Combine the chard, garlic, pine nuts, and parmesan in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times until the ingredients are mixed. With the food processor running, stream in the olive oil until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
To combine the pesto and pasta:
Place the pasta in a large bowl. Add in the pesto, 4 tablespoons of butter, and some of the pasta water. Mix with tongs until sauce coats the pasta.
