Pasta

Twirling fresh homemade pasta around your fork and savoring each light, tender stand between your teeth is truly one of life's simple pleasures. Making pasta may sound entirely too painstaking and exotic, but it's easier than you think! Dried pasta and store-bought fresh pasta cannot be compared with homemade, so if you have never experienced this unparalleled treat, it's time you give homemade pasta a whirl.

Basic fresh pasta contains only three ingredients: flour, salt and eggs. We start by sifting together the flour and salt. On a large, clean work surface, we make a mountain out of the dry ingredients, and make a deep well in the center. Breaking the eggs carefully into the center of the well, we begin to whisk them very gently with a fork. Slowly we incorporate the flour from the sides of the well into the egg mixture. Once we have incorporated the eggs with enough of the flour, roll up our sleeves and get ready to knead!

Once we've kneaded the dough to satiny, elastic perfection, we will need to let it rest. "Resting" means allowing the gluten to relax so that we will be able to roll and shape the dough more easily. To make lasagne, linguine, tagliatelle, fusilli, rigatoni and other shapes, we use our pasta machine, which has several die and cutter attachments for the preferred shape.