Not even patience. Really. As in many of the cases of my previous recipes, they should know that they can do it and simply decide to try it. I can tell you that the difference between commercial homemade pasta and homemade pasta is from heaven to earth, for its softness, its taste, for the quality of the sauce is perfectly based with the pasta, because they can make it in a thousand ways ( with machine, without machine, colors, infused), because it is ready in the blink of an eye and for how good it feels to eat something, absolutely delicious, that they prepared with their own hands.
If this is the first time they are going to do it, I recommend that you do a small amount, the only thing you have against making pasta, is that the process can be extended a little bit. Yes, then they will have pasta in the freezer for when it provokes them or if they are going to make it for a special meal, they can do it with all the anticipation of the world.
The ingredients for the pasta are wheat flour, eggs and a touch of salt. But nothing. Once they have mastered the proportions and kneading, they can begin to experiment, substituting part of the flour for another, such as cocoa, or part of the eggs, for another type of moist ingredient such as squid ink, beet puree or spinach, for example. The kneading process is very noble and the dough will tell you if it is in need of more moisture, or on the contrary, more flour.
Ingredients
500 gr of all-purpose wheat flour
4 to 5 eggs (depending on their size)
1 teaspoon salt
In a clean counter, form a circle with the flour. Make a large hole in the center and place the eggs and salt. Little by little, break the yolks with your fingers and add flour from the sides towards the eggs. Subsequently, without any shyness, begin to mix everything already with kneading movements. They knead and knead, wiping their hands, rubbing one against the other and incorporating those residues into the mixture. Continue until you have a homogenous mass. The final kneading is given with the machine.
I have the classic manual pasta machine, in fact, it was my grandmother's. Today there are much more modern machines, accessories that can be put in the Kitchen Aid and do it automatically, even industrial mixers. Finally, once the machine is installed, I divide the dough into four parts and begin to work one of them. I suggest you keep the rest covered with a cloth so it does not dry out. The traditional pasta machines bring rollers that are adjusted progressively so that the dough has, as it adjusts, less thickness. In general, this type of machines have between 7 and 9 levels of separation of the rollers. You start with these as separated as possible and they close as you knead. The thickness of the pasta is to the taste of each one, I always leave it as thin as possible. At the beginning, I usually pass the dough several times without adjusting the rolls, this allows me to finish the kneading. Then I start adjusting until I reach the last one.
At this point, they should follow what they want to do, for example:
Linguini, fetuccini, pappardelle: they pass it through the corresponding accessory or they sting it manually with a knife, stretched over an allowance.
Pasticho: it is ready to use, they must cut it into blocks according to the size of the mold in which they are going to assemble the pastiche and pass it through boiling water. They dry it with a cloth and, as long as they are having slices of pasta, they are putting together the pastiche.
Raviolli and tortellini: once stretched, place it on the countertop to fill, in the case of the raviolli to fill and cut, in the case of the tortellini, to cut, fill and fold.
This time, I made both raviolli and tortellini, since it had an Andean smoked cheese that I wanted to use and it also had some familiar tortellini stuffing.
For the raviolli, the filling was as follows:
200 grams of goat ricotta
100 grams of smoked cheese
Fresh chives, rosemary and parsley
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
They mix it with the help of a fork, looking for a smooth puree. You can help with a splash of milk, taking care not to leave them liquid since that would ruin the pasta when you put it together.
To assemble, simply place teaspoons of filling in two rows along the pasta sheet, cover with another sheet, close each raviolli with finger pressure, cut using a knife and end up shaping the edges with a fork. As they are assembling, place them on a tray with flour or semolina or on an extended tablecloth, also with a little flour or semolina. They should be dried before taking them to the freezer or cooking.
In the case of the tortellini, I prepared a filling with chicken breast, lean pork and fresh rosemary, all ground with parmesan. The assembly of these is a little more complicated.