Tortellini

This week I took the plunge and made my first ever batch of homemade pasta. And it wasn't nearly as scary or hard as I was afraid it would be. Good upper body workout for sure. But not really tricky. Thought I'd share the recipe so you can try it too!

1 cup flour
1 egg
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 bowl cold water

That's it! Sounds easy so far, right? Ok, so here's the instructions that go with it:

Pour the flour onto your clean counter top. Add the salt, mix it in, then mound the dry ingredients up and make a well in the middle. Crack your egg into the well, then slowly work it into the flour by making swirling motions with your finger. Add a tbsp of oil and start pressing with your hands, trying to form a cohesive dough. It will probably be crumbly and grainy. Here's where the bowl of cold water comes in. The recipe I found calls for "1-2 tablespoons of water until your dough has the right consistency". Personally I find that hard to judge by the tablespoon full, and I'm a rather tactile person, so I like to just wet my hands and work that moisture into the dough, and repeat until it finally sticks together and just forms a smooth dough that doesn't crack when you fold and knead it. The recipe says knead 5-8 minutes, but I figure by the time I get my dough to the right texture I've already been working it over for a few.
If you have a pasta machine, here's where it gets easier. If not, grab a rolling pin and get ready for the upper body work out part. The dough is springy and likes to shrink back on himself. You'll have to roll, and roll, and roll to get a sheet of dough anywhere close to thin enough. You can cut the dough any way you want at this point, I chose to use a drinking glass to cut out circles, then stuff them, fold them, and then call them tortellini. You can make whatever kind of pasta you like!

I stuffed mine with cheddar, ricotta, parmesan, asparagus and onions, but you can stuff nearly anything into pasta and have it turn out delicious. In the future I'll try to roll the pasta a little bit thinner, but I'm so glad I finally tried it. And there will be a next time.