Storing Eggs in Pasta

The other great place to store your glut of eggs besides the fruit cake is in home made pasta.

You don't need to buy a machine but it is a good investment and does make the job of rolling easier.

I guess it enables you to get really nice fine spaghetti lengths too but mostly I make fettuccine and farfalle which can both be hand cut. 

In fact I think hand cut pasta looks charming and rustic and made with love.

The best thing for this job is a very inexpensive crinkle edge pastry cutting wheel.

  

I hang my lengths to dry over coat hangers suspended from the door knobs of the over head cupboards in the kitchen and the smaller pasta like farfalle I leave to dry on wire cake coolers. 

You can freeze your fresh pasta after it has dried for about an hour or dry it thoroughly for about 24hrs and store it in sealed glass jars in the pantry. It must be thoroughly dried before storage but will last at least a year in a cool dry cupboard sealed from vermin.

My Recipe

 allow 1 egg per serve

allow 2/3 cup of flour per egg

allow a ratio of 2 parts flour to 1 part fine semolina.

Therefore and for instance.....

for 4 people....

4 (large) eggs,  1 2/3cup of flour and 1 cup of fine semolina.

Mix the flour and make a well into which you crack the eggs and gradually work them into a dough. It will seem quite dry and crumbly at first but it will come together and I also like to rest it in a plastic bag or wrapped in a barely damp clean cloth. I break off portions at a time to work with leaving the rest wrapped up and somewhere cool.

There are so many options; lasagne sheet, extruded shapes, lengths or cut shapes.

With pasta in the cupboard you always have a meal on hand and it is a great way to store some of those eggs when they are coming thick and fast. A packet of home made pasta is also a wonderful gift from your store cupboard and welcome as a "house warming", "get well" or "congratulations new (tired) parents"

Remember to never wash your pasta machine, just brush it down with a dry pastry brush and store it in a dry cupboard.