Pumpkin Pasta Dough

Instructions

Make the pumpkin pasta dough

In a small bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and 1 of the eggs.

In a food processor, briefly pulse 2 cups "00" flour, the semolina flour, salt, and nutmeg.

Add the pumpkin mixture and pulse briefly to combine. Add the remaining egg and pulse until the mixture forms crumbs that look like small curds. Pinch together a bit of the mixture and roll it around. It should form a soft ball. If the mixture seems dry, drizzle in a few droplets of water and pulse briefly. If it seems too wet and sticky, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse briefly.

Add the remaining egg and pulse until the mixture forms crumbs that look like small curds. Pinch together a bit of the mixture and roll it around. It should form a soft ball. If the pasta dough seems dry, drizzle in a few droplets of water and pulse briefly. If the pasta dough seems wet and sticky, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse briefly.

Turn the mixture onto a clean work surface lightly sprinkled with semolina flour and press it together with your hands to form a rough ball. Knead the dough by using the palm of your hand to push the dough gently but firmly away from you, and then fold it over toward you. Rotate the dough a quarter turn, and repeat the pushing and folding motion.

Continue kneading for several minutes, until the dough is smooth. Form it into a ball and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before rolling and forming it into your desired pasta shape.

Shape the pumpkin pasta dough into noodles

Editor's Note: You could opt to roll the pasta dough by hand using a long wooden rolling pin, although a pasta machine makes for far less work. Feed the blob of pasta dough through a pasta machine set on the widest setting. As the sheet of pasta dough comes out of the machine, fold it into thirds and then feed it through the rollers again, still on the widest setting. Pass the pasta through this same setting a total of 4 or 5 times. This takes the place of kneading the pasta dough and ensures the resulting pasta is silky smooth.Pass the sheet of pasta dough through the machine again, repeatedly, gradually reducing the settings, one pass at a time, until the pasta achieves the desired thickness. Your sheet of pasta dough will become quite longif you have trouble keeping the dough from folding onto itself, cut the sheet of dough in half and feed each half through separately. Generally the second-from-last setting is best for tagliatelle and the last setting is best for ravioli and any other shapes that are to be filled. To form lasagne noodles for our pumpkin lasagna recipe, stretch the dough as thin as you comfortably can, no thicker than 1/16 inch.

If you lift a sheet with your hand, you should be able to see the shadow of your hand through it. Because lasagne noodles are layered, they need to be very thin. Using a sharp chef's or similar knife, cut each sheet into rectangles about 4 inches by 5 inches. Click to learn how to form any other pasta shape.

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