Fresh pasta (Whole egg version)

This is basic simple as, fresh pasta. 100g high gluten (bakers') flour to one whole egg and a little salt. There is the 'special' egg yolk version if you were in the mood for some biscotti, souffle or meringue to make use of the egg whites., it goes something like 7 1/2 Egg Yolks to 125g ”00” flour.

Ingredients: Yields 900g of pasta, 6x 150g mains serves)
600g High gluten Flour (I used bakers')
6x Eggs
Sea Salt
Extra flour or fine semolina(which hope to try), for dusting

Equipment:
Strong stand mixer
Dough hook
Sieve
Bowls
Cling film/plastic bag
Pasta rolling machine
Racks to dry the pasta on.

Method:
1. Sieve flour into mixing bowl
2. Crack one egg at a time in a small bowl; checking for spoilage, blood trace or shell fragments before adding to the collection of egg mix. (Especially important if you're doing a big batch, one bad egg and you'll have to throw the whole lot out or waste more time swimming for shell fragments.)

-Machine mixed-
3a. Add eggs to the machine bowl and swirl to coat the bowl so the machine doesn't just spin around dry flour with the wet mix.
4a. Add flour and some salt (~1 teaspoon per 300g flour) and start mixing at minimum speed with the dough hook, until a smooth dough. Don't add water to make it easier for the machine, you'll get limp/sticky dough that is crap to put through the pasta machine. When done skip to Step 6...

-Hand mixed-
3b. Create a 'well' in the bowl of flour.
4b. Add eggs and some salt (~1 teaspoon per 300g flour) in the well and work the flour into the eggs by running your hands through the edge of the well.
5b. Once there is some sort of dough formed, tip contents onto a steady bench and knead into a smooth dough. May take 10-30 minutes of hard work. Also don't cheat by adding water, limp/sticky dough is crap to run through the pasta machine.

6. Once a smooth, firm dough is achieved; wrap in cling film or a plastic bag and let it rest in the fridge for an hour. If done right, the dough will not stick to the plastic. And use fairly soon, no overnight business you'll get grey dough.
7. Prep rolling area, clamp machine down and dust down with copious amounts of flour.
8. Divide dough in small portions, say 100g.
9. Dust with flour, thin down and square up the dough and feed in through the thickest setting (#1 on this Marcato Atlas), crank away.
10. Crank it through at #2.
11. Set the rollers back to #1, feed the sheet through leaving a bit left of the tail.
12. Moisten with a spray or dap of water to 'glue' the head of the sheet back onto the tail. Crank through to join. This way allows you to get even sheets of pasta, no stretched heads or tails.
13. Work you way down to thickness settings, dusting to prevent sticking, one hand in the loop or someone to help to lift the dough away and apart to prevent sticking.
14. I stop at #6 for general noodle pasta, or #7 for lasagne sheets.
15. Slice off the dough at the input end and crank out the tail.
16. Hang on a rack to dry the sheets out while you proceed with the rest of the dough. Helps provide drier, less sticky sheets to cut into strands.
17. Proceed with Steps 9 to 16 with the rest of the dough.

Wide strips (Linguine I guess)
1. Fold the sheets of drier pasta over themselves to gauge a good length to divide the sheets into.
2. Crease on the divisions and slice off the right lengths, dust with flour and set aside.
3. Dust copiously with flour to prevent strands sticking together, crank the small sheets through the cutters and hang on rack to dry.

You can dust the pasta again with flour and portion it up, wrap, bag it and freeze. You can cook pasta noodles straight from the freezer into boiling water. And since it's your own handmade pasta, it only takes less that 5 minutes (depends of denseness of the pasta and your capability to keep the water boiling quickly) to cook, not 10-15 minutes for dry packet pasta.

For all you hand kneaders out there, I've been there before. Limp dough is crap to work it in a pasta machine, maybe (I mean if you're lucky and persistent) a limper dough with a sprinkle of water added may be used for lasagne sheets. It's painful but worth it IMO, but a stand mixer helps reduce fatigue.