Day 2 out of 40

I don’t fell that mixing sourdough by hand is time-consuming. It has been a gift for me to be able to connect with several communities in the process – farmers, eaters and unseen wild yeast and bacteria.

A few weeks back I bought a pasta machine at a second hand store. It was an older model with no missing parts, as far as I could tell.  I had to bring it home; that good deal we can’t  pass up. With great excitement I ran a batch of my sourdough egg pasta recipe through the pasta extruder and watched long strings of fettuccine come out in minutes!

 “No more kneading and rolling,” the manual promised. Still I was left with a pile of machine parts to wash.

I am back at cutting and pulling string of noodles by hand, playing with flour and soaking in the time it takes to roll out the dough.

I love to cook and bake with ratios. It is the way my hands and brain can work best together. I have been testing ways to make sourdough egg pasta that I could  use for both noodles and dumplings, from sifted to whole grains. So far so good.

321 Sourdough Egg Pasta By Ellie Markovitch

300 grams of flour (here I used whole wheat today)

200 grams sourdough starter fed or from the fridge

100 grams of eggs (2 large)  

1 tablespoon fat

½ tsp salt

Mix all ingredients by hand or use a stand mixer. Place the flour, starter, and eggs, oil and salt into the bowl of your stand mixer with the dough hook and mix on low until the dough comes together, 6-7 minutes.  Or mix by hand until the dough will feel tough but smooth. Don’t worry if it a bit stiff. It will relax and expand as it ferments (yes the sourdough from the fridge, discard will ferment as well).

Depending on how you feed your starter or if you are using all whole grain flours, you may have to add a few splashes of water as you knead the dough, until it comes together and releases from the bowl.

Cover the dough and let the pasta rest on the counter for at least 30 minutes. I leave mine to ferment for several hours until it puffs up or you can let it slow ferment in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

Divide the dough into four equal portions. Lightly flour the working surface and roll the dough as thin as you can. I always make a second pass to get it thin as possible, dusting the counter with flour as I go.

 I roll into a rectangle and either cut strips with a pasta cutter or fold the pasta sheet in thirds as if folding a letter and cut with a sharp knife.

Transfer the cut pasta to a floured baking sheet, swirled into little nests if cooking right away. If drying, I like to separate the noodles.

For dumplings, use a glass or cookie cutter to cut rounds.

When you’re ready to cook the pasta, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook for 2-4 minutes, whole-grain flours will take a bit longer to cook than pasta made with all purpose flour. 

This sourdough pasta recipe can be air dried for a couple of day. Once dried, transfer for long storage in the freezer or just freeze the fresh pasta and increase the cooking time by a minute or so.