Fresh Pasta with Lemon Zest

Fresh Egg Noodle Basic Pasta - What a difference fresh makes!

I've been on a weird kick lately... looking for ways to better utilize my Kitchen Aid attachments.  This wasn't my idea, I was guilted into it.  My husband as drying a cutting board and as he put it away, he spied my attachments and said, "When are you going to make pasta again?"  I said, "That's not where the cutting board goes!"  But, point taken and I decided I'd make some pasta dishes this weekend.

Over the holidays a good friend of ours gave us her Mother's Marinara recipe - from a Boston Italian family, I figured it was pretty good stuff and so I made a big pot.. freezing several small bags of the stuff for another day.  That's when the light went on for Ravioli.

I whipped out the pasta machine and made a batch of pasta.  Using pasta sheets, I went about making the ravioli.  It turned out fantastic, but I didn't get any pictures.. but trust me on this one.  It was good.  I had some ground beef to use and I followed Alton Brown's meatloaf recipe and his unique twists on using the meat for Ravioli.  They were GOOD!  The marinara sauce was the capper.. Wonderful!  I boiled the ravioli for about 10 minutes.. the meat was cooked perfectly in the center!  HINT:  Use a small biscuit cutter to cut out the pasta.. so easy!

But, that didn't satiate my need to make more pasta.  Lately, I've been craving this great dish that I've made several times in the past.  It screams for a good pasta - so I planned on some Lemon Chicken Piccata this weekend.  I decided to do a Linguine Pasta, but this time, I went for a bit more flavor and zested two whole lemons into my flour before adding the eggs.  The addition was faint, but definitely delightful. 

So, without further ado, adieu or adew.. here's the basic pasta recipe.  I still have no clue what he did with my cutting board!

BASIC PASTA

3 cups all purpose flour
4 large, whole eggs (room temperature)
1 tsp salt
1 TBS olive oil
Zest of two lemons, finely grated
(I had to add a couple TBS of water to mine.. living in Arizona comes with a price - DRY FLOUR!)

Add flour and sale to your KA Mixer.  Zest in the rind of two lemons.  Using a paddle attachment, mix for about 30 seconds, then begin adding eggs, working each one in before adding another.  Add the olive oil and let the mixture come together in a dough ball.  If needed add some water, a TBS at a time just until the dough comes together nicely.  Dough should not be wet, but barely come together in one, cohesive mass.

Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and lightly flour your counter top.  Knead for 10 minutes by hand.  Don't use your KA.. the dough is too tough on your machine.  Wrap the kneaded dough in plastic and let it rest on your counter top for 30 minutes.

Dough should be silky and not sticky

Divide the dough into 4 quadrants and using your pasta roller attachment on your Kitchen Aid (I am guessing a hand crank pasta roller is the same thing!), set it for the widest setting.  Flour one piece of dough and re-wrap the others. Flour your dough on both sides very well and run it through the widest setting about 3 or 4 times. After each roll, I fold my dough into thirds - achieving a rough square shape. 

Now, run your dough through the next narrowest setting and keep going until you have achieved a paper-thin dough at the narrowest setting. 

Attach the linguine cutter and cut your long piece of dough into 2 or 3 pieces.  Run each through the linguine cutter and using a dowel or a rack, allow your dough to dry about 10 minutes before cooking.  You can also loosely bundle your dough after it has dried and freeze it. 

Boil your water to a full roll, then drop your pasta in the water.  Boil it for about 90 seconds, then quickly remove to a drainer.  Serve immediately. 

One recipe makes enough pasta to feed 6.  Delish!