Labour of Love - Egg Pasta from Scratch!

It is amazing what conveniences the modern world now offers for cooking. Gone are the days when one had to slave away at the stove making chicken stock with messy bones and carcasses. Gone are the days when one had to grind sambal paste by hammering away with the pestle and mortar. Gone are the days when one actually knew what raw ingredients went into the curry, chopping, dicing and slicing away. All one needs now is a Knorr cube, a packet of Adabi and a bag of Baba's. Easy peasy. But with all this convenience, we are also slowly losing all that wonderful cooking lore. Some of this knowledge has even been handed down through the generations within the family, like some super-secret martial arts which will blow all your enemies away if you execute that last deadly stance ala Buddha’s Palm a.k.a. Yi Loi San Jiong.

Since I started baking and cooking more frequently, it has been quite an enjoyable ride - finding out what actually goes into that cake which I have always loved to eat, learning how certain spices or herbs creates that distinct flavour, exploring the wide variety of cooking techniques out there and realizing that not everything can be produced via stir-frying Chinese style...There just seems to be an endless array of stuff to try out...

So, last Thursday, when I wanted to have some pasta for dinner, I decided that I should try making egg pasta from scratch instead of buying it off the supermarket shelf. The whole recipe seemed sooooooo simple. Flour, eggs and salt - that was it. But the one question that made me doubt whether it would be a successful venture was this - how in the world I was going to shape the dough? Without a pasta maker a.k.a pan mien machine, shaping the actual pasta strands would definitely be a challenge.

Kneading the dough

As I was mixing and kneading the dough, various options came into my mind...
Option 1: Follow the recipe instructions where I had to roll out and flatten the dough paper thin, fold and cut into strips, then unfold the strands.
Option 2: Follow another recipe where I basically take pieces of dough and hand roll it individually into long strands.
Option 3: Pull the dough "la mian" Chinese noodle-style – my own bright idea.

What actually transpired was this. I started with Option 1. Then, because I was too impatient and did not wait for the dough to dry out enough, some of the dough stuck together after I folded it for cutting. Which meant I couldn’t unfold the strands if I continued cutting! After finally managing to undo the disaster and hacking off the lumpy parts, the matter was resolved by cutting the dough into strips individually and skipping the folding step altogether. This took more care and precision, but it got the job done at the expense of an achy back. If Ultraman wasn't around to assist with this tedious process, I think I would have just randomly chopped everything up!  As for the remaining lumpy dough, I tried a combination of Option 2 and 3. My “la mian” technique didn’t quite work out because the dough kept breaking – it just wasn’t elastic enough. I ended up rolling out individual strands, which I then pressed and stretched flat with my fingers. The results were pretty sad-looking....

Cut pasta

It didn’t even seem like there would be enough for everyone at dinner. I was beginning to regret not getting that convenient packet of pasta from the supermarket. After letting the pasta rest for about 15 minutes, I collected all the strands together and surprise, surprise....when bunched together, it actually LOOKED like proper pasta, and not just mis-shapen lumps of dough!

Pasta strands collected together

Thus encouraged, I forged bravely ahead to cook the pasta and make my sauce.  Making sure I did not overcook the pasta (handmade ones cook much faster than the store bought packets), I then drained, tossed it in the sauce and grated the parmesan. Voila! 

The final product

The pasta turned out smooth, firm, chewy and pretty darn yummy (blowing my own trumpet here...).  I felt such a strong sense of kinship with those Italian chefs who had been making pasta by hand for centuries that I nearly burst into a rendition of "O Sole Mio".....The masses at dinner got fed, everyone was happy and I was ready to take on the world!