Fettuccine Alfredo!

For my learning project this week I chose to make fresh pasta! I learned this more than 4 years ago in my high school cooking class. I have been seeing many videos on my social media of influencers making pasta and it inspired me. I also remember it not being that hard, just more time-consuming. I think that is a large misconception which is why many people don’t want to make fresh pasta. They think it is difficult and takes a lot of skill, but in reality, it is just time-consuming. I also paired my fresh pasta with alfredo sauce. This is one of my favourite meals to make and also order at restaurants. I feel like the majority of people like fettuccine alfredo which would make this meal a good option to make for guests.

Fresh pasta only takes a few ingredients to make: flour, salt, eggs, and oil (depending on the recipe). There are many different types of pasta shapes to make with fresh pasta. Some examples are penne, fettuccine, spaghetti, bow-tie, fusilli, lasagna, linguine, ravioli, and much more! Some pasta shapes are used for different meals and sauces. For example, lasagna is used to make meals such as lasagna/ Another example is pasta shapes such as penne which allows for meals to be more saucy. For this project, I decided to make a beginner pasta shape, fettuccine.
Through my previous projects, I used a TikTok or Pinterest recipe. Although I used a TikTok recipe for my Alfredo sauce, I used YouTube for my pasta recipe. I enjoyed the YouTube video because it laid out the measurements for making the pasta and had a visual aid. I also read the comments beforehand which recommended using a bowl first to incorporate the ingredients or else it can get very messy! Some of the comments even said that they were 13 years old and made the fresh pasta and that it was easy. This encouraged me to continue making the pasta and to follow the video for my instructions.

1. Here are all of the pasta dough ingredients.
2. All of the ingredients are in the bowl.
3. Start mixing the ingredients.
4. Take out of the bowl once it starts forming a ball. Dump onto the floured surface. Start kneading.
5. Knead some more!
6. Poke the ball to see if it is ready to rest.
7. Wrap the ball of pasta dough in plastic wrap. Let it rest for 30-60 minutes.
8. Cut the dough into 4 pieces to make it easier to work with.
9. On a floured surface, roll out your dough until you can see the colour of your hand.
10. Fold the dough to make a rectangle. Cut dough into strips.
11. Here is the raw fettuccine pasta dough!
12. Next, I made my alfredo sauce.
13. Boil the pasta in building-salted water. This should only take 2-4 minutes as it is not dehydrated like the regular pasta we use. Once it is done boiling add it into the sauce. Enjoy!

Although I did a really good job making the pasta, there are some things I wish I could improve on. I wish that I could’ve made the pasta more thinner so that when they cooked it didn’t expand as much. I didn’t realize that they would get bigger once they cooked, so the pasta turned out thicker than I would’ve liked. However, I was getting impatient with rolling out the pasta and I thought that I couldn’t get it any thinner. I have seen people who have Kitchen Aids get a pasta attachment that thins out the pasta for you instead of using a rolling pin. If I ever do get a Kitchen Aid in the future this is something I would be interested in as I think it would save time and improve the thickness of the pasta. I will be making pasta again in the future! Next time, maybe I will attempt a different shape such as a ravioli or bow tie. I will also try to make my pasta thinner.