This is a simple, easy to follow recipe. Pasta making is not as complicated or as time consuming as it appears. Any novice cook can make pasta. If you have a rolling pin, you can make pasta. I use my pasta machine for spaghetti and broad noodles, but I don’t always take it out for square pasta or very thin soup pasta. Since I have to cut those by hand, I might as well roll them by hand. Cooked pasta is the starting point for a wide variety of Hungarian pasta dishes. Depending on how the noodles are cut and what they are served with, the end result can be vastly different.
Cooked Pasta
4 eggs
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
water
• Combine 3 cups flour, 4 eggs 2 Tbsp olive oil and salt and kneed it smooth and velvety into fairly firm dough.
• Add water 1 Tbsp at a time if needed.
• Shape into a ball, wrap in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes. This will make the dough soft and easier to handle.
• After thirty minutes of rest, knead the dough until very soft and elastic.
• Divide the dough into 2 parts, cover one with wrap and start shaping the other one.
• Form a ball and flatten it into a circle.
• Place it on a lightly floured surface and roll it out 1/16-inch thick.
• As you roll the dough, keep shaping and shifting it to make it a uniform thickness.
• Lay the rolled dough on an old [clean] tablecloth.
• Repeat the shaping and rolling steps with the remaining dough.
• Loosely roll up both dough circles in jellyroll style.
• With a sharp knife cut them into 1/4-in. slices.
• Unroll the noodles.
• Bring a pot of salted water to rapid boil.
• Add a bit of oil to the water.
• Plunge in the noodles and cook until tender.
• Drain and rinse well under cold running water.
• Shake the sieve, to drain off all the water.
• Toss with melted butter and heat.
Rolled by hand
Cut by hand
Rolled by pasta machine
Cut by pasta machine: broad pasta
cut by hand: fine pasta
cut by hand: square pasta
