Egg Pasta Noodles- how to make your own dried pasta

I enjoy making fresh pasta but was having a hard time getting it to stop sticking to itself. Finally realized that I could use the dehydrator trays (I have an excalibur- so the trays are large squares, not the round doughnut shaped trays) to keep the pasta separated and then dry the pasta in the dehydrator. 

Alternatively you could lay out on cookie sheets or over a suspended broom handle.  I've seen folks shape the pasta into "nests" and freeze but the dough gets all stuck to itself when I've tried that.

Use fresh flour and the best flour you can get your hands on. I use Bob's Red Mill organic flours- either whole wheat or white whole wheat.  Don't try this with old flour- since there's not very many ingredients rancid flour would be obvious.  It would be fun to try this with home ground wheat, or sprouted, dehydrated and ground wheat berries.

Equipment: pasta machine/roller, dehydrator (optional) 

Method:
Mix and knead into a dough:
3 eggs
300 grams fresh whole wheat flour
1-4 TB water as needed (will take a little bit of practice to know exactly how much water you need)


Let dough rest at least 15minutes, covered with plastic wrap. This step is critical- without it you'll have a mess trying to get it through the pasta machine.

Cut off a 6th of the dough, flatten it with your hand (or you can try with 1/4 of the dough at a time but it will be a lot to handle on the machine at once!). Dust with a tiny bit of flour.

Start running through the pasta machine at the largest setting- do this a few times, reshaping the edges.

Then loop the pasta onto the machine in a circle (i.e. attach the starting end to the other end and run the seam through the machine) so you can run the dough around and around-- this saves a lot of time and means you can do this with just one person.

Start dialing down the thickness on each (or every other) rotation of the dough until it is sufficiently thin (number 3 on the machine I use).

Cut the dough off the machine.

Cut pasta sheets into 10" lengths, dust with a little flour between the sheets, stack the sheets. Carefully cut with a knife into strips of your desired thickness. 

Quickly transfer the cut pasta to dehydrator tray and separate into each of the layers.  This amount of dough fills 6 Excalibur dehydrator trays.

Dehydrate at 105 F for 2 hours.  Store in plastic bags to keep moisture out.

Use as you'd use normal dried pasta.  I love it in chicken noodle soup or chickpea soup.