Perfecting the Pasta Recipe and Making Fresh Egg Noodles

Hubby says that I have to use the pasta maker attachment 500 times to make it worth while. So I am nearly 1% there. I am honestly in love with this little extra helper in my kitchen. I don't know, there's something about playing with flour and dough. Seeing all that transform into silky smooth sheets of dough and long oodles of noodles. So I am happy. 500 times? Oh yeah, we'll get there some day.

Having tried and tested a few basic pasta recipes, I've settled on one from Gary Mehigan and George Colambaris' book: Your Place Or Mine?

200g Strong Plain Flour (00)
2 large eggs
2 tsp Olive Oil
2 tsp Water

And this will feed 2 people. A nice and easy recipe to remember.

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As a child growing up in Malaysia, on the first day of Chinese New Year, I would wake up to a cloud of sweet warm heady aroma of garlic fried in oil and tumble out of bed to a breakfast bowl of steamy heart warming mee suah soup - delicate, silky smooth strands of fine wheat noodles for longevity and health. And each bowl has a red egg, a symbol of luck and prosperity.

Now having children of my own, I am trying my absolute best to uphold and honour this tradition. Long oodles of noodles for longevity! It may not necessarily be mee suah (some noodles are better store bought!), one year it was spicy Taiwanese noodles and the other year it was Maggi 2 minute noodles (only joking grandmother!). And each bowl MUST have a red egg in it.

So this year, we had home made egg noodles in a clean chicken broth, shredded chicken breast, shittake mushrooms, fried garlic AND a red egg.

(Funnily enough, I did not take a photo of the CNY noodles.)

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My sister in law suggested we made yet another type of noodle, Pan Mee or some call it Mee Hoon Kueh. We ate this as little kids in hawker centres back in Malaysia! So we googled the recipe online (after trying to decipher her mom's recipe over the phone - a pinch of this and a handful of that!) and we came across this (click click). The dough recipe works and I'm keeping it for next time! I used this exact same recipe for the egg noodles too. It's pretty similar to mom's.

Mee Hoon Kueh
Adapted from Cooking Crave

Dough Recipe

250g plain flour
1 egg
100 ml
1 tbsp cooking oil
pinch of salt

I threw everything into the KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook on and let it mix for about 10 minutes or so. Then I took it out and knead gently with my hands and shaped it into a ball. I wrap the dough with some cling film and let it rest for about an hour.

You can read the rest of the recipe HERE.

I hope you are all enjoying your holidays and eating lots of yummy Chinese New Year goodies! Enjoy the weekend!


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