Carbo-load the right way: make your own pasta dough

Nothing beats the taste of fresh, homemade pasta. Read on for two basic pasta dough recipes.

Nothing beats the taste of fresh, homemade pasta. While it requires some effort, it's not rocket science. Plus, working with your hands to make food from scratch can actually be very therapeutic. Read on for two basic pasta dough recipes.

• For pasta without egg: mix about 175 grams (six ounces) durum wheat semolina with about 140 grams (4 1/2 ounces) flour and a pinch of salt. Add 175 millilitres (3/4 cup) water and knead into a smooth, elastic dough.
• Add a little more water if the dough is too dry. It should be solid but not sticky.
• Let it sit for about one hour, then roll it out as thick as you want, cut it into the desired shape and let it dry.
• Pasta made from durum wheat is particularly good with thick sauces.
• For egg noodles: knead about 260 grams (8 1/2 ounces) wheat flour, three lightly-beaten eggs, five millilitres (one teaspoon) of salt, and 15 millilitres (one tablespoon) of olive oil into a smooth dough. It is done when the top is shiny and it loosens from the work surface. After letting the dough sit, roll it out, cut it up and let it dry.

• Brew coffee when you make pasta — having moist air in the kitchen at the same time makes production easier.
• Turn dough over several times to make the process of rolling it out easier.
• Work on pasta dough in sections and put the rest of the dough in aluminum foil to keep it from drying out too much.
• Egg noodles can be coloured and flavoured. Beet juice, for example, turns noodles dark red; tomato puree, light red; carrot or pumpkin puree, orange; saffron, yellow; spinach, green; mushrooms, brown and squid ink, black. Mix these ingredients with eggs, oil and salt and knead them in with the flour. The dough may need additional flour to compensate for moisture from the added ingredients.
• Use a large, deep pot so the noodles can float freely while they boil.
• Pasta swells to about 2 1/2 times the original volume during cooking. Make sure you add it to water at a full rolling boil.
• Stir pasta around as soon as it's in the water so it it keeps its shape and doesn't stick together.
• Don't add oil to the water. Although adding it prevents boiling over, it won't stop your pasta from sticking together. Instead, oil blocks the pores so that the noodles don't hold the sauce well.
• Pasta dishes have a zestier flavour if you add a little soup stock to the cooking water.

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