Homemade noodles and fettuccine pasta

Homemade noodles.... yes you read it right. We made homemade noodles last week and it was a huge hit. Loved the way it turned out. So simple and quick to make that I wonder why we never thought of making it earlier. I have always stayed away from store-bought noodles .... be it instant noodles or the regular kind. I have heard so much about the preservatives in them that it keeps me away from it always. My kids like to eat it when served at a friends or relatives house but they know that mummy will never buy and make any :) They dont even bother me asking to buy it for them ... see they are used to my answer :)

Last week my elder kiddo said he felt like having noodles as he saw his friend carrying it as a snack to school that day. I tried to tell him that its not very good and he understood it very beautifully. I love him so much when he says... "I know you will give me the best... its ok I dont want to eat noodles".... I knew from his eyes that he really wanted to have some though he gave an answer just to keep me happy. A while later he was back with a question "what is noodles made of mamma".... I told him its made of maida. Instant was his next question " Then why dont you make it yourself... say without the preservatives". Now I had to give it a thought and yes that night I sat wondering if I should give it a try. Checked out the internet and found it interesting to know that it was quite easy to make it except for the cutting part. I dont have a pasta cutter or noodles maker but then I thought I will try with whatever I could think of :)

The next day I tried out a couple of times with options to cut the dough to get the shape and ended up with some noodles and fettucine pasta which tasted perfect and also made a surprise snack for my kids. It really tasted very very good with no complaints even from my hubby. My hubby who is not at all a noodles lover fell in love with this homemade version. We made some spicy noodles for all and fettucine alfredo especially for the kids. This recipe is definitely a keeper

Now everything was ok except for the maida part till we ate it 3 times in the same week. I had to think of the whole wheat version and yes we did try it the next week. You wont believe how awesome it turned out. I was worried about the nutty flavour of wheat but to my surprise we didnt feel it at all when we made the noodles :) Will post the recipe for Wheat noodles soon 

Serves... 4 ppl

Serve option... Hot

This is what u'll need...

Maida or All-purpose flour - 1 cup
Egg - 1
Oil - 1 tbspn
Water as needed
Pepper to taste
Salt to taste

Here is the stir....

• Crack an egg into a food processor. I used the food processor the first time as suggested in the videos I checked out terming it "really easy" but then thereafter I used my hands and liked it way better than cleaning the processor and its blades. Its nothing more than like kneading chapathi dough

• Add a little salt and pepper as per your taste. I have used about half a teaspoon each

• Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into the blender

• Add the flour. I used about a cup of flour

• Give this a quick pulse and it will look like bread crumbs

• Start adding water gently till the dough starts pulling itself and moves away from the walls of the processor

• Thats it ... now transfer this dough to your work surface

• Knead it for a couple of minutes and the dough is ready to use

• Dust your work surface with a lot of flour and start rolling out the dough. I divided the dough into 2 parts for easier handling

• For fettucine pasta, roll out the dough into a thin chapathi. Make sure you keep dusting with flour as you work with the dough

• Once rolled out, use a pizza cutter and cut it into thin strips as you would want them to be. Remove the strips from the surface and leave it aside dusted with some flour again

• Look how I cut the strips. I know they are not even and am not perfect but never mind I am not into any art n craft class here ;) It just has to be thin, flat and long and that is what I tried :) Looks ok to me 

• Boil water in a saucepan. I used a medium sized pan filled 2/3rds with water. Add half a teaspoon of salt to the water and bring it to a boil

• Now drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook it for about 10-15 seconds. If you feel the pasta is a little thick then allow for about 30 seconds. When done all the noodles start floating on the top

• Remove the cooked pasta using a slotted spoon. I tried it that way and found it a little difficult to get all of them out at the same time. So I resorted to my good old strainer. Pick another saucepan and plac the strainer on it. Pour the entire boiling water and cooked pasta through the strainer and rinse it in running water for a couple of seconds. Move this to another bowl. Use the same liquid again for the next batch
• The following picture shows little thick which was my first try but then the next batch came out super thin. You can see the strained out noodles in the bowl to see how it came out

• Add a little oil to the pasta to keep it from sticking 

• Repeat with remaining dough
• To make the noodles shape I used my idiyappam maker. In this case I made the dough very soft and sticky unlike earlier

•  Passed it through the idiyappam maker directly into the boiling water. It came out good but it was really hard to press it out

• Another way I tried was to roll the dough into thick chapathis and then cut it into very thin strips. Again follow continuous dusting here too

• Make yummy fettucine alfredo or spicy hakka noodles and enjoy your evening snack

Note:

• Keep salt on the lower side as we are adding it in dough and the water also
• Add a little oil to the boiling water to avoid oiling it after straining out the cooked noodles
• Keep in the fridge in an air-tight container to store it fresh till next morning. I kept it that way to use up the remaining noodles for breakfast