Fresh pasta

A few years ago, J and I bought a pasta maker. After a few unsuccessful attempts at using it, it got wedged in the back of the closet. Today, I had a hankering for carbonara and I wanted to make fresh pasta, so I did.

Biba's recipe calls for two cups of flour and three extra large eggs. I don't have extra large eggs so I went with four large eggs instead. I apologize for the ten million photos. I was very excited. And I don't know why I have so many issues with focus on the camera.

	I started off with my pretty eggs in the flour well, slowly mixing the flour into the eggs.
	The mixing was going so well that I decided to stop to take a picture. That was when things began to go wrong. When I stopped mixing, the egg started to overtake the thin flour wall and started spreading out onto my board. I immediately put the camera down and tried to save it but alas, egg mixture dripped down the cabinets and onto the floor. It took several minutes for me to get it back on track. If you look closely in this picture, you'll see the nice sharp edge to the left where I cleaned up my mess.
	After mixing in most of the flour until you get a nice paste, like this I hope because this is where I stopped, you are supposed to stop, wash off the board, lightly flour it, and then begin to knead it.
	To knead, you flatten the dough with your hand and then fold it over and then repeat again and again and again for 8 to 10 minutes. Not as bad as making mayonnaise, but when you get to the 10 minute mark, you are about ready to stop. Me anyway. After 10 minutes, I had this pretty ball of dough. Then I went to the closet to dig out the pasta machine. It was really buried waaaaay back there.
	To thin out the pasta to the right thickness, you take an egg-sized ball of dough, flatten it with your palm, and sprinkle with flour. Then you put it through the machine on the thickest setting. Then fold it over, add flour if necessary and do it again. You do this five or six times. Biba specifically says that you should not skimp on this step because the pasta machine is helping you knead. When you've done it your five or six times, then you begin to adjust the thickness every time until it's as thin as you want it. If you are going to stuff the pasta, you stop now and stuff it. If not, you roll out all the pasta so it can dry before cutting it to ribbons.
	Here is my pasta drying. Not much else to say about that.
	After about ten minutes of drying, the pasta can be cut. We actually need two people for this. One to hold to uncut pasta and turn the crank and one to take the ribbons as they come from the machine.
	Fresh pasta can apparently keep for a few days unrefrigerated and uncovered. Here is my pasta waiting to be cooked! How exciting. =)
	This, obviously, is my pasta cooking merrily.
	And here it is, draining!
	Before we actually began cooking the pasta, I asked J if he wanted to cook the carbonara tonight. Here are the carbonara ingredients: egg, garlic, pancetta or bacon, and grated parmigiano.
	First you cook the pancetta, though we used bacon. Then you add the pasta, then the egg, then the cheese, mixing the whole time.
	Plated carbonara!