No pasta maker, no problem. The most tender, decadent pasta from scratch can be made with little more than an egg, flour, and your favorite kitchen knife. Semolina flour helps the pasta soak up sauce, and it’s more elastic and less sticky than other flours.
At a high level: make a dough, let it rest, then slice it into noodles ready to boil.
We’re making egg noodles with butter and cheese, complemented with some optional shrimp and mushrooms. This recipe is inspired by a trip I took to Italy in the off-season where it’s easy to get a group cooking class all to yourself! I learned to make pasta in an old Vatican granary with Romina from Cooking Class Rome.
PASTA DOUGH
Ingredients
The classic pasta dough recipe calls for 1 egg per person (50g), and 1 ½ the egg’s weight in flour (75g). Let’s make enough dough for 4 people… we may want leftovers.
- 4 large eggs (~200g)
- 1 cup minus 2 tbsp Semolina flour (~150g) such as Bob’s Red Mill
- 1 ¼ cup All-purpose flour (~150g) such as White Lily
- 1 tsp sea salt or table salt (6g)
Instructions
In a mixing bowl, combine the semolina flour, all-purpose flour, and salt.
Choose a clean work surface such as a large cutting board or clean countertop.
Turn your salted flour onto your work surface and form a mound like a volcano with a deep crater in the center. Crack your eggs into the center one at a time, discarding the shells, and use a fork to gently stir some of the flour into the eggs. Once all eggs are in the center, keep gently stirring until they are completely combined with the flour, folding it inward.
Keep some semolina flour nearby to powder the surface and keep the dough from sticking to your hands. Fold the dough onto itself until you have a uniform ball of dough, and a pressed finger indentation bounces back slightly.
Cover it with plastic wrap and set it aside for 30 minutes. This lets the dough rest and relax to become supple and stretchy on its own, saturating every grain of flour with the eggs we mixed in.
Clean and dry your work surface, and sprinkle on some semolina flour to keep it from sticking.
This dough will get rolled flat down to 1mm, so if your work surface is small, you can simply slice off ¼ a chunk and work with a small portion at a time.
Remove your dough from its resting place, discard any plastic wrap, and roll your dough flat using a rolling pin, dusting whenever you need to prevent sticking.
I roll twice in one direction, rotate it 90 degrees, and roll again, repeating until it’s entirely flat. The goal is a long rectangle that we will fold in on itself. Trim off any sides to make it square.
THE NOODLES
Using the back of a knife, trace 3 even fold lines, so at 25%, 50%, and 75%.
Dust the entire surface.
Fold the top of the dough down to the 25% line, and fold the bottom up to the 75% line.
Fold both of those towards the middle so you have one long strip.
Using a sharp knife, cut this into 1cm strips, each cut will become a noodle.
Once they’re cut, sprinkle some flour and jumble them with your fingers to spread them out into noodles and remove their angular folds. Divide the noodles into four separate, gently twisted “nests” for boiling.
Bring a pot of at least two quarts of water to a boil, and sprinkle in a pinch of salt.
Once it’s a rolling boil, add one batch of noodles and separate with a wooden spoon, fork, or tongs to separate if they’re sticking.
Boil for 2-3 minutes, then remove from water and set aside.
They will finish cooking in your sauce of choice — my favorite is below.
Shrimp
Optional but a fantastic add-in, incorporate shrimp right as the noodles are going in the pan with the sauce.
- 1lbs shrimp- raw, thawed, peeled, deveined (450g)
- ½ lemon’s juice (54g)
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 1 tbsp olive oil (15g)
Bring a pan to medium heat. Add in olive oil and garlic. Stir until fragrant, but don’t let the garlic fully brown. Add in shrimp, mix with garlic and oil, and drizzle with lemon juice.
Stir and turn shrimp just until they’re no longer translucent on either side… they’ll finish cooking in pasta sauce.
Mushrooms
Again optional, but mushrooms are another worthwhile add-in. They pair so well with shrimp and Parmesan. Incorporate these right as the noodles are going in the pan with the sauce.
- ½ pound (226g) fresh mushrooms such as crimini, shiitake, or oyster mushrooms, sliced
- ½ shallot, sliced finely
- 1tbsp butter (15g)
- 1tbsp olive oil (15g)
Bring a pan to medium heat. Add in butter, olive oil and shallot, stirring frequently to distribute until the shallot is fragrant and sizzling. Add in mushrooms, turning over to combine and soak up the butter and olive oil. When all parts are saturated and the mushrooms are tender, take them off the heat.
SAUCE AND FINAL ASSEMBLY
This pasta sauce is similar to what you’d find in “fettuccine alfredo”, but is primarily known as “fettuccine al burro”.
- 8 tbps butter, softened (114g)
- ¼ cup heavy cream (60g)
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (56g)
- 1 tsp extra grated Parmesan cheese for topping
- 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Cream the butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the cream a little at a time, until fully incorporated. Finally, mix in the grated cheese. If you’re not using the sauce at once, this can go in the fridge.
Heat a skillet over medium heat, or even the same empty pot used for the pasta, and add in the sauce ingredients until they’re about to simmer. Add in your noodles.
If you’ve prepared shrimp and mushrooms, they go in now as well.
When everything is coated, simmer for 2 minutes and take off the heat.
Plate the pasta and cover with a pinch or two of fresh Parmesan.
Buon appetite!
If you’re looking for more campground recipes, check out some of our other favorites below.
- Easy Camp Meals for Solo RV Travelers
- 4 Korean-Style Recipes to Cook on a Camping Griddle
- 7 Campfire Soups to Make in Your Dutch Oven
Do you have favorite desserts you cook at the campground? Let us know in the comments below!
