With Thanksgiving comes a lot of food preparation. So much cooking! Last week I made 5 batches of noodles. One of these years I'm going to have to invest in a pasta machine. I'm sure it would make the job go a lot faster!
Does anyone else have egg noodles as part of their traditional Thanksgiving meal? For most of my growing up years my family never had noodles for Thanksgiving. One year a guest that we were having over said that Thanksgiving dinner wouldn't be complete without egg noodles. My mother wanted to accommodate their tradition so she found a recipe for egg noodles in her Good Housekeeping cook book.
Her Good Housekeeping cook book is like a cooking encyclopedia for the kitchen. It is a few inches thick with step by step illustrations; teaching everything from gravy making to bread baking, from how to cut a multi-layer cake to how to prepare a lobster, how to carve everything from ham to leg of lamb, humble things like biscuits and not so humble things like blinis with caviar. This is the kind of book that every new Bride needs!
It is the book that my Mother turned to when she wanted to learn how to make noodles. The recipe was good and so were the instructions. It walked a complete newbie through the process without using any special equipment. Then I tried my hand at it. My noodles were thin and ribbon-y and my mom's were thick and dumpling like.
The consensus was that I should be the noodle maker. And I still am today! Whenever we go to my family's for Thanksgiving I bring homemade noodles.
Homemade Egg Noodles
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 TBS. oil
1 tsp. salt
In a large bowl combine 1 cup flour and remaining ingredients. With mixer at low speed, beat for 2 minutes.
With wooden spoon, stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough.
Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
Cover dough and let rest 30 minutes.
Cut dough in half. On floured surface roll dough out to a 20"×14" rectangle, then fold in half crosswise, and in half again crosswise, (flouring between the layers), to form a 5"×14" rectangle. Cut into strips.
Unfold strips and lay on a cloth towel.
Repeat rolling, folding, cutting, and unfolding with remaining dough.
Let strips dry at least 2 hrs. before cooking. Continue drying the noodles until crisp to store for later. Noodles can be stored in airtight containers or bags in the freezer at this point.
Cook 5-8 minutes in boiling broth, unless you want to drain the cooking liquid, in that case just use boiling water.
Your homemade noodles look good!
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