Presto – it’s homemade pasta

Here’s one of the simplest and easiest ways to impress the heck out of your dinner guests: Make your own pasta.

Then you can drop this little nugget into the conversation: “The ravioli’s homemade, by the way. Hope you like it.”

They’ll take you for Mario Batali.

My wife Carol and I recently rediscovered the glories of fresh pasta. I say rediscovered, because like normal people with better things to do, we spent the last 10 years shoving the pasta machine farther back into the cabinet while shouting, “Hey, where’d we put that box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?”

But thanks to a brush-up lesson from Spokane chef and culinary teacher Char Zyskowski of Apple Charlotte Cooking Co., we have been on a serious pasta-making kick for the past month for one simple reason: No pasta tastes as good as fresh pasta.

Actually, there are several simple reasons, the others including: (1) There’s no other way to make homemade ravioli (2) It also produces outstanding lasagna and (3) It’s ridiculously easy.

Easy, if you own a pasta machine. A lot of people own them as attachments to their stand mixers. Unpack that thing and give it a try. If you don’t have a stand-mixer attachment, you can easily pick up a hand-cranked pasta machine in the $30 to $70 range at many department stores and kitchen stores. At our house, we have an Atlas that should last a lifetime.

A real Italian grandma doesn’t need a machine; she can make pasta with a wooden rolling pin. That, however, takes expertise. The rest of us should use a pasta machine, which is the easiest way to roll the dough out into the thin, silky, slightly elastic sheets that are necessary for perfect pasta.

Making pasta is a three-step process:

1. Mixing the dough. Pasta dough consists of nothing but flour, olive oil, salt and eggs. The recommended recipe (see below) has more eggs than most – in fact, egg is the main liquid. This makes a particularly rich egg noodle. This recipe also includes a half cup of semolina flour, easy to find in most grocery stores. Semolina gives your pasta better flavor and better texture, but you can also make pasta entirely with bread flour or entirely with semolina flour or with any combination thereof.

If you have a food processor, mixing and kneading is a snap. Pour the dry ingredients into your food processor, hit the power button for just a few seconds to stir everything together. Then put the eggs and olive oil in a bowl, whip it briefly with a fork and pour it on top of the dry ingredients. Hit the power button for brief bursts, no more than 30 to 35 seconds, just until everything is thoroughly moist and beginning to come together. If it balls up and jams the blade, it’s too sticky and you should toss in more flour. If it turns to cornmeal, it’s too dry and you can add a (very) little water or egg whites. It should just hold together without being too sticky. Dump it out onto a board, form it into a ball and knead just a few times.

(You can also mix it by hand, by putting the wet ingredients in a well in the center of the flour and incorporating the ingredients bit by bit with your fingers or a bench knife. You’ll need to knead thoroughly for eight to 10 minutes.)

Cover the dough ball with a bowl and let it rest for at least 20 minutes. Don’t rush it. Resting is vital if you want the right texture and elasticity. Pour a glass of wine and relax, or start whipping up your sauce.

2. Rolling it out into sheets. After the dough has rested, cut it into fourths with a knife. Set up your pasta machine or your pasta attachment. Set the roller part of the machine (the part without the cutting blades) to the No. 1 setting, in which the two rollers are farthest apart from each other.

Take one piece of the dough and crank it through the rollers. It may come out gnarly and uneven – that’s OK. The dough will get smoother and silkier with each repetition. If it sticks to the rollers, dust it with some more flour. Sticky is the last thing you want.

Take the rolled-out piece and “book” it – fold each end toward the middle. Think of it like folding a letter, into thirds. Take the booked piece of dough and feed it back into the rollers, still set at the No. 1 setting. Book it and repeat five or six times. Just when you think it’s smooth and perfect, run it through one or two more times, just to make sure.

Then move the dial to the No. 2 setting and run it through two more times, without booking it. Repeat two more times at the No. 3 setting, two more times at the No. 4 and so on, all the way to the second-to-last setting (for thicker, heartier noodles, like lasagna) or the final, thinnest setting. Mine goes to No. 7.

At this point you will have a long ribbon of thin, perfectly silky and elastic pasta dough. Repeat this entire process with the other three pieces of dough.

3. Preparing the pasta shapes – If you are making lasagna noodles, you’re already finished. Just cut the ribbons into pan-sized lengths.

If you’re making fettucine or spaghetti, feed the ribbons through the cutting part of the pasta machine to make long strands. You can also cut them by hand, of course.

If you’re making ravioli, lay one of the ribbons on the cutting board, place dollops of filling (see recipe below) every one or two inches along the pasta and then fold the rest of the ribbon over the top. Press down around each dollop to get rid of most of the air. Then cut out each piece with a ravioli roller, available at kitchen stores. This will crimp and seal the edges. If you have a ravioli stamp, instead of a roller, you can stamp out the pieces instead. If you have neither a stamp nor roller, just cut with a knife and press the edges with your fingers to seal (you may need to moisten the edges with a little water so they adhere).

For lasagna, you don’t even need to cook the fresh noodles. They’ll cook sufficiently in the oven. For anything else, you should boil the pasta the regular way, but for a much shorter time than usual.

Only one or two minutes should do the trick. Please don’t overcook it – one of the best things about fresh pasta is its chewy texture.

Char’s Pasta Dough

From Char Zyskowski, Apple Charlotte Cooking Co.

2 cups flour

1/2 cup semolina flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

Place all dry ingredients in food processor. Mix briefly.

Lightly mix together in small bowl the rest of the ingredients and add to the dry. Mix with food processor in short bursts, just until it starts to come together, no more than 30 to 35 seconds total.

Pour out of processor; knead slightly, form into a ball and place bowl over it for at least 20 minutes, up to 30 minutes.

Roll out into sheets with pasta machine and cut into desired shapes.

Yield: 6 (3.25-ounce) servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 288 calories, 8 grams fat (2 grams saturated, 25 percent fat calories), 11 grams protein, 42 grams carbohydrate, 212 milligrams cholesterol, 2 grams dietary fiber, 423 milligrams sodium.

Cheese Filling for Ravioli

Adapted from “The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian,” by Jeff Smith

1 pound ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated Romano cheese

1/4 pound grated provolone cheese, grated

1/4 cup chopped parsley

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Yield: 22 ounces filling

Approximate nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate.

Four-Cheese Lasagna with Fresh Pasta

Adapted from “The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian,” by Jeff Smith

1/2 recipe of Char’s Fresh Pasta (recipe above)

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg, beaten

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups homemade Italian tomato sauce or commercially prepared sauce (Paul Newman’s Sockerooni Sauce works particularly well)

1/2 pound mozzarella, thinly sliced or grated

1/2 pound provolone, thinly sliced or grated

Additional grated parmesan, for topping

Roll out the pasta dough in a pasta machine according to the above directions, to the second-to-last setting (lasagna noodles can be slightly thicker than other pasta). Cut the rolled-out ribbons into lengths to fit your pan. You should end up with about nine lengths. There is no need to boil the noodles; they will cook sufficiently in the oven with the rest of the dish.

Mix the ricotta, 1/4 cup parmesan, egg, salt and pepper together.

Lightly oil a 13 by 9 inch baking pan and spread 1/2 cup of the sauce on the bottom. Lay three noodles lengthwise in pan. Spread a third of the ricotta mixture on the noodles. Top with a third of the mozzarella and a third of the provolone. Top with another 1/2 cup of sauce and another layer of noodles. Spread on another third of the ricotta, mozzarella and provolone. Top with another 1/2 cup of sauce and the last three noodles. Spread the last of the ricotta over the noodles, and then the last of the remaining sauce. The last of the provolone and mozzarella goes on top, along with a sprinkling of additional parmesan.

Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for 40 minutes, until bubbly and the cheese is lightly brown. Let it cool for a few minutes before cutting.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate due to recipe variables.