Homemade noodles

So I've made noodles before, but they never turn out quite right. Dry or chewy or just plain wrong. My mother has  recipe for egg noodles that always turned out well with just ap flour, but I never had it on hand when I was experimenting with homemade pasta. Now that I'm out Boston-way, though, there are more specialty shops and/or specialty items (and, yes, I am enough of an American country girl that semolina counts in this category) that Chris and I decided to try out semolina flour. Here's the recipe we ended up using:

3 medium eggs (4 1/4 oz), beaten
6 ounces semolina flour
2 ounces bread flour (we were out of ap)
1/2 teaspoon salt

We mixed the solids, formed them into a bowl, poured in the eggs and slowly mixed in the flours with a fork until it came mostly together (you won't incorporate all the flour mix). Then we kneaded it until smooth and elastic (adding in the extra flours as necessary so that the dough isn't sticky). Right now it's resting for its half hour. Hopefully this turns out well. *crosses fingers*


So, to get it thin enough when rolling by hand, you have to divide the ball of dough into at least quarters. Our first quarter ball ended up a little thick, but the next two were gorgeous (still on the thicker side of noodles, but perfect for the application we put them to). The last quarter is in the fridge, where it can apparently stay for up to 24 hours--well wrapped, of course.

A good trick is to roll them out on a piece of wax paper, lightly floured with the leftover semolina/bread flour mix, and turn it 90° while flipping it over occasionally. Soon enough it will get thin enough that you're worried about tearing it (unlikely; or at least it never happened to me), and you want to go even just a bit thinner.

Then pop them into some boiling water, and wait for them to float. If you got them thin enough, they'll be done now, but if they're on the thick side, it'll take a minute or two more. My batch took about a minute after floating to finish cooking the inside.

I'm certainly looking forward to eating more fresh noodles tomorrow!