Easy As Pie Pasta Dough Recipes

EASY-AS-PIE PASTA DOUGH

Steps:

• Add flour, eggs, yolks, olive oil, and salt to the bowl of a food processor. Process until dough comes around the blade of the processor, and continue to blend. Add additional flour, a half tablespoon at a time, until dough is smooth and still slightly tacky, about 1 minute. If dough is dry, add water, one teaspoon at a time.
• Wrap dough in plastic wrap and let rest at least 1 hour at room temperature. If resting longer than 4 hours, transfer to refrigerator, where dough can rest up to 12 hours. Remove from the refrigerator 1 hour before rolling.
• Unwrap dough and divide into 6 roughly equal portions. On a lightly floured surface, press into a rectangular shape with your palms, and then roll to a dimension of 9" x 12". Dough should be very thin.
• With the long side perpendicular to you, fold pasta sheet at 3″ intervals to form a flat roll. Use a sharp knife to cut into ½-inch wide noodles. Gently use unfurl the pasta, toss lightly with flour if necessary to keep from sticking, and place on a baking sheet, lightly covered with a clean kitchen towel, until ready to cook. Repeat with remaining dough.
• To boil noodles, bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Add noodles, gently stir, and cook, 2 minutes. Drain and serve with your favorite sauce.

BASIC FRESH PASTA DOUGH

Steps:

• Mound the flour in the center of a large, wide mixing bowl. Dig a well in the center of the mound and add eggs and yolks. Using a fork, beat together the eggs and begin to incorporate the flour, starting with the inner rim of the well. The dough will start to come together in a shaggy mass when about half of the flour is incorporated.
• Use your fingers to continue to mix the dough. Press any loose bits of flour into the mass of dough. If needed, add another egg yolk or a tablespoon of water to absorb all of the flour. Once the dough comes together into a cohesive mass, remove it from the bowl.
• Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for 4 to 5 more minutes until the dough is smooth, elastic and uniform in color. Wrap the dough in plastic and set aside for at least 30 minutes (and up to 4 hours) at room temperature.
• Line three baking sheets with parchment paper and lightly dust with semolina flour. Set aside.
• Cut off a quarter of the dough. Rewrap rest, and set aside. Use the heel of your hand to flatten the dough into an oval approximately the same width as your pasta machine, about six inches. Set the rollers to their widest setting and pass the dough through.
• Lay the dough out onto a lightly floured cutting board or countertop and neatly press together into halves, so it's again about the same width of the pasta machine. Feed the pasta through again at the widest setting. Think of these first rollings as an extended kneading. Continue to fold the dough in thirds and roll it until it is smooth, silky and even-textured. Do your best to make the sheet the full width of the machine.
• Once the dough is silky and smooth, you can begin to roll it out more thinly. Roll it once through each of the next two or three settings, adding flour as needed, until the dough is about 1/4-inch thick.
• Once the pasta is about 1/4-inch thick, begin rolling it twice through each setting. As you roll, lightly sprinkle all-purpose or 00 flour on both sides of the pasta to prevent it from sticking to itself.
• Roll out pasta until you can just see the outline of your hand when you hold it under a sheet, about 1/16-inch thick for noodles, or 1/32-inch thick for a filled pasta. (On most machines, you won't make it to the thinnest setting.)
• Cut pasta into sheets, about 12 to 14 inches long. Dust the sheets lightly with semolina flour and stack on one of the prepared baking sheets and cover with a clean, lightly dampened kitchen towel. Repeat with remaining dough.

HOMEMADE PASTA DOUGH

Steps:

• In a small bowl, whisk the first 6 ingredients. On a clean work surface, mix the all-purpose and semolina flours, forming a mound. Make a large well in the center. Pour egg mixture into the well. Using a fork or fingers, gradually mix flour mixture into egg mixture, forming a soft dough (the dough will be slightly sticky)., Lightly dust work surface with flour; knead dough gently 5 times. Divide into 6 portions; cover and let rest 30 minutes., To make fettuccine, roll each ball into a 10x8-in. rectangle, dusting lightly with flour. Roll up jelly-roll style. Cut into 1/4-in.-wide strips. Cook in boiling water 1-3 minutes.

BASIC PASTA DOUGH

Steps:

• On a clean dry work surface, make a mound of the flour and, using your fingers, make a well in the center of the mound. Using a fork, break the shell of the eggs one by one and drop the eggs into the center of the well you made of the flour. With the fork, beat the eggs together. Again using the fork, slowly begin to fold the flour in towards the center of the well to incorporate the flour into the beaten eggs. As you mix the flour with the beaten eggs, it will begin to form a doughy mass. Work this mass using your fingers until it begins to lose its moist and sticky character.
• When the mass begins to feel uniformly dry, begin to work the dough using both hands: kneading with the palms of both hands, pushing from the center of the ball of dough outwards and folding the near edge inwards to begin the kneading cycle again. The kneading stage should take about 10 minutes by hand.
• After the dough has been fully kneaded, it is time to thin the dough into sheets suitable for cutting. A manual pasta machine works wonders at this stage. Cut the ball of dough into three equal pieces. Form these pieces, by hand, into equal rectangular shape to be passed through the rollers of the pasta machine. Set the cylindrical rollers at their widest opening, put a piece of dough in the space between rollers and crank the handle to pass the dough through. As the sheet of pasta comes out the bottom of the rollers it should be set on a dry cotton towel to rest while you begin on the next piece. Repeat the thinning process with the remaining pieces of pasta, thinning and then setting aside, consecutively so that each piece of pasta is equally rolled out. When all the pasta has passed through the first rolling stage, set the machine to the next setting to begin rolling the pasta thinner. Start the rolling process again, beginning with the first piece of dough and continue with the remaining pieces. As each is rolled thinner set it aside and continue onto the next.
• As you return to the first piece of dough, set the cylinders one setting closer. Continue in this fashion until the pasta dough has been rolled out as thinly as possible.
• As the sheets of dough rest, keep them on a cotton towel, to prevent sticking to the work surface. When they are all rolled out you are ready to cut the pasta into the desired shape. They can be cut using the cutting wheels of the rolling machine or by hand using a knife.

FRESH PASTA

Steps:

• Put the flour in a food processor with ¾ of your egg mixture and a pinch of salt. Blitz to large crumbs - they should come together to form a dough when squeezed (if it feels a little dry gradually add a bit more egg). Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface, knead for 1 min or until nice and smooth - don't worry if it's quite firm as it will soften when it rests. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 30 mins.
• Cut away ¼ of the dough (keep the rest covered with cling film) and feed it through the widest setting on your pasta machine. (If you don't have a machine, use a heavy rolling pin to roll the dough as thinly as possible.) Then fold into three, give the dough a quarter turn and feed through the pasta machine again. Repeat this process once more then continue to pass the dough through the machine, progressively narrowing the rollers, one notch at a time, until you have a smooth sheet of pasta. On the narrowest setting, feed the sheet through twice.
• Cut as required to use for filled pastas like tortellini, or cut into lengths to make spaghetti, linguine, tagliatelle, or pappardelle. Then, dust in semolina flour and set aside, or hang until dry (an hour will be enough time.) Store in a sealed container in the fridge and use within a couple of days, or freeze for 1 month.

EASY PIE CRUST

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• Place all ingredients in 9 inch pie pan. Stir together with fork. Pat mixture into bottom and up the sides of the pan. Poke holes in bottom and side of crust.
• Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until light brown. Use as directed in favorite pie recipe.

GRANDMA'S VERY EASY PIE CRUST

Steps:

• Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Pour vegetable oil into a 1-cup measure and fill the measure with milk up to the 7-ounce mark. Whisk oil and milk together and pour immediately into the bowl with flour. Mix the crust together with a fork just until it holds together. Do not knead.
• Divide crust in half, form into balls, and roll each half out between sheets of waxed paper. Peel waxed paper from crusts to fit into pie plate.