How to Make: Pappardelle Pasta by Hand

For Valentine’s Day I surprised Joe with a homemade pasta dinner (he thought we were getting Chinese)

What I always enjoy doing is making homemade pasta. The recipe I saw in Bon Appetit's magazine that I made called for Pappardelle pasta. It’s a wider than normal pasta that’s good for creamy and thick meat sauces. Joe really enjoys Fettuccine Alfredo but that was too boring to make.

The recipe I made was a Creamy Leek and Bacon sauce over the Pappardelle pasta.
You can find the recipe in the magazine or here: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/02/creamy-pappardelle-with-leeks-and-bacon

Today I’ll show you it’s not hard to hand roll and cut pasta if you don’t have a pasta maker.

Basic ingredients for homemade pasta:
2 cups flour (extra for covering surface while rolling out)
2 tps of salt(kosher)
3 eggs

You can make your roll of dough right on the counter grandma style or in a bowl. You will take the 2 cups flour and salt and mix. Once that’s done you create a well or wall of flour with an opening big enough for the 3 eggs. Once you crack and mix the three eggs in the middle you can use your hands or a fork to mix in with the flour. Eventually it will become a dough and you will kneed it until all is well combined. If need be add flour as you go. Let the dough rest by covering it for 3 hours or even over night.

Once it has set, cut in half and roll out flat on a well floured surface. If it doesn’t roll out straight that’s OK. You can fold in sides until your satisfied. Once that’s done you then loosely roll dough all the way up. Cut with a sharp knife 1in or so cuts through dough. Each piece you will unroll and lay flat. That’s your pasta! 

*Using more flour during the last process is better because it won’t stick.
*To cook the pasta put in a rolling boil pot of water and cook 5-8 min