The most loved and requested menu item in my family is homemade egg noodles. The family recipe is more than 150 years old, although I suspect it goes back even further. I used to help my grandmother roll out egg noodles when I was a child in the 1950s. Grandma, who was born in 1899, learned to make them from her mother and still used her mother’s wooden cutting board to roll and cut the homemade egg noodles on. Today my son has that cutting board and I use one that is an exact replica.
The recipe for homemade egg noodles is basic and simple, but making these egg noodles from scratch is becoming a lost art. Homemade egg noodles have a freshness and tender quality that you just don’t get in prepackaged egg noodles.
To get started making homemade egg noodles, gather together your cutting board (you can use a marble or granite surface if you have it), a deep mixing bowl, a fork, a large serrated knife and a rolling pin. Grab some newspapers or brown paper bags for drying the egg noodles. I usually take my cutting board to the kitchen table as I like that height for rolling out the homemade noodles better than the height of the counter top.
Recipe
4 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/8 cup of water
These measurements are approximate because Grandma didn’t measure when she made egg noodles and neither do I. You just learn the feel of the dough, but I know that each egg will take about a half cup of flour and one egg will make enough homemade noodles to serve two people. Of course, that’s if they only eat one serving.
Break the eggs into the mixing bowl and whip them with a fork. Add the water and salt and beat a little more. Add 1 cup of the flour and stir until blended. Stir in the rest of the flour until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Depending on the size of the eggs, the amount of flour needed may vary.
Work the dough with your hands either in the bowl or turned out onto a floured cutting board, adding flour as needed. The dough should be firm and elastic, not wet. When the dough is cool to the touch and not sticking to your hands, it is ready.
Pinch off about an egg-sized piece of dough and dip in the flour. Press it into a disc on the cutting board and make sure both sides are well-floured. Roll out the dough in all directions, flipping the dough over and dusting with flour when it starts to stick to the board. Roll it out as thin as you can get it – that’s why I like to roll it on the table. You’re standing over it high enough to put some pressure into the rolling.
Once you have a thin rolled out disc of egg noodle dough, fold it over to pick it up off the board and unfold it onto the newspaper that you’ve spread out on another table or counter top. The paper absorbs some of the moisture from the dough, helping it to dry. Continue to roll out the rest of the dough in the same manner. Spread it all out on the newspapers.
Clean out the bowl and scrape the cutting board clean of any dough that might have stuck to it. Leave the cutting board and flour out to use when cutting the egg noodles in a little bit. Meanwhile, after a half hour or so, the dough pieces should be drying on top and you can flip them over to dry the other side. Go find something else to do for the next thirty to sixty minutes.
When the dough rounds are dry to the touch, but still soft enough to roll up, they are ready to cut into egg noodles. I usually cut two at a time by stacking one on another and dusting with flour in between. Set the stack on your cutting board and starting at one end, roll up like a jelly roll. Slice the roll into thin strips with the serrated knife, turning the roll to even out the cuts as needed. When the whole roll is cut, carry the rolled strips over to your newspaper and separate them into the individual egg noodles. Cut the rest of the dough into noodles in the same way.
Now that you have all the homemade noodles on the newspaper, fluff them with your fingers into a single layer and leave them to dry for several hours or overnight. Once dry, gather them into a bowl so that you can cook them. If you aren’t ready to cook the egg noodles yet, they freeze very well. Package in freezer containers or bags and use in the next few months.
Cook homemade egg noodles for twenty to thirty minutes in a rich beef or chicken broth and add some shreds of meat to the pot. Serve over mashed potatoes.
Serves 8. Maybe.
