Recipe: Homemade Egg Noodles

I never really cooked when I was single - it just seemed like too much work for one person. After I got married (years and years ago), my husband cooked on the weekend, and I learned several simple meals. But in some ways, I never felt like I was cooking, since I used several cans of ingredients to make the dishes.

Late this summer, I finally decided to do what I considered "real cooking". Two things happened:

1. I learned how much I love my crock pot. 
2. I realized that I had been cooking before - I just didn't know it. 

 I found a wonderful website called A Year of Slow Cooking, where I learned how to make homemade marinara sauce. When it came time to make the pasta, I wanted to have something homemade to go with my marinara sauce.

I searched the Internet, high and low, and came up with...  a big headache.  Then I created a very simple recipe, using all the other recipes on the Internet.  So here is...

(Yet Another) Homemade Egg Noodles Recipe


Ingredients:

16 oz. (453.6 g.) of Flour
5 room temperature eggs
Pinch of salt
2 tsp. of Olive Oil (optional)

Directions:

1. Measure out the flour into a large bowl.  Make a well in the middle of the flour.
2. Break the eggs into the hole.  Add salt and olive oil directly to the eggs.
3. Mix the eggs, salt, and olive oil into the flour.  If the dough is too wet, add some flour.  If the dough gets too dry, add a little water.
4. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and kneed until it become smooth and slightly elastic.
5. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes or so.
6. Take about 1/4 of the dough, and roll out as thin as you can.
7. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into thin noodles.  Put the noodles on a plate, adding just enough flour to keep the noodles from sticking to themselves.
8. Roll out the other 3/4 in three sections, adding to the plate with flour.
9. While you are rolling out the last piece of dough, bring salted water to a rolling boil in a large pan.  
10. Cook the noodles in the boiling water in batches.  You want to use batches to avoid the noodles sticking to each other in the water.
11. Note, it only takes about 1 to 2 minutes to cook the noodles - do not walk away from the pan or you can accidentally overcook the noodles.  
12. Serve immediately, or lightly coat with olive oil to keep the cooked noodles from sticking to each other and refrigerate.

Notes:

• I add a pinch of salt to the noodles, but I also add salt to the boiling water.  Otherwise, the noodles taste rather bland.
• If you are mixing the dough by hand, I suggest you coat your hands with a light layer of Crisco shortening.  This will help keep the dough from sticking to your skin.
• If you don't have a scale, start with 2 1/2 cups of flour and add flour to get the dough to the right wetness.
• Make the noodles as thin  as possible, because they will puff up a lot in the boiling water.  The first time I made this recipe, it looked like a cooked long dumplings instead of noodles.  Luckily, they still tasted fantastic.
• If you have a pasta press, I envy you!  I have no hints about how to use a pasta press, but when I get one I'll update the recipe.