I love pasta. It is one of my favorite dishes in this world. I can eat it every single day. Not kidding, every single day. I think a good pasta is a little bit tender however soft enough so that you can enjoy that yummy bite.
Even though the packed dry pasta is an easy choice you can also challenge yourself with this amazing recipe for a homemade pasta. Believe me you will be satisfied by the result. It is definitely different than those in paper boxes. And I love the taste of a creamy homemade pasta. Plus it is definitely much more healthier than the ready pasta.
Every summer we go to Çanakkale, where our summer house is, and we start cooking things for the winter. First we start of with tomato sauce and then we cook some jam and we finish off with some noodles or pasta. This year we prepared some noodles. As you can imagine they were gone by the beginning of December. So, I wanted to buy my own pasta machine because if I had one I could still have that amazing homemade pasta for lunch or dinner.
I was walking in Kadıköy a while ago and I discovered a small shop. There were millions of stuff related with cooking there, anything you could imagine of; cookie cutters, rolling pins, whisks and many more. I was looking for a piping bag and I saw this amazing pasta machine. I was also searching for the prices for a pasta machine for a while, they were around 200-300 TL. But this one was just for 65 TL. I was shocked. I couldn't believe and since I wanted to buy it for a while I decided to buy.
The first time I used the machine the result was okay. It was yummy but the dough that I used was very soft and it was hard to cut the pasta. That's why I changed the recipe and this was the result. I hope you'll like it.
P.S.: If you do not have a pasta machine you can just use a rolling pin and a knife.
The recipe that I used gives enough pasta for 3-4 people. Remember that you will need a 1/2 cup of flour for 1 egg. So you can double the recipe.
Ingredients:
For the pasta:
2 eggs,
1 cup of flour
Salt
For the Ground Beef Sauce:
200 g. of ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 table spoon of tomato paste or sauce
1 table spoon of olive oil.
Salt, pepper
Water
Directions:
1. Put the flour on the counter. Make a well. (I used a mixing bowl for this and I regret using it so I highly recommend you to make your dough on your counter). Crack your eggs into the middle of the flour. Your eggs must be surrounded by the flour. Add some salt and mix them all.
2. Mix it until a nice dough forms and knead the dough. Cover the dough with a cloth and rest it for about half an hour.
3. Cut the dough in to walnut sized small balls. Roll them. And cover them with the same cloth again. Take one piece of dough and knead it for about 1-2 minutes. Roll it with the rolling pin first and then take it to the pasta machine.
4. The pasta machine has levels. Mine has 9 levels starting from 1. 1 creates the thickest dough and 9 creates the thinnest. So first roll it from 1. Then roll it again from 1. I use each level twice so that dough is soft, when you rush it might have some cracks. If you want a silky texture than you should be patient.
5. Then cut the pasta in the form of tagliatelle (thick slices) or spaghetti (thin slices). Carefully place them separately so that the pasta do not stick to each other.
6. Add some water in a large saucepan. Generously add some salt. When the water is boiling add your pasta. You can also add some oil so that the pasta do not stick. Cook until it is are al-dente. When they are ready, drain them but save some of the water that the pasta was cooked in. Put the drained pasta back in the same pan and pour the water that you saved. Add in about 1 table spoon of olive oil. Let it cook for about 2 more minutes.
7. In another pan cook the minced meat with 1 table spoon of water and some olive oil. Add in the chopped onions. When everything is cooked add in the tomato paste, the salt, the pepper and some water so that the mixture can be a sauce instead of a thick minced meat. The sauce should be like a bolognese sauce.
8. Take some pasta to your bowl. Put some of the sauce on top of it. You can eat it plain or topped with some cheese or even topped with garlic yoghurt.
Enjoy.
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