Have been much enjoying making fresh pasta with one of those little pasta rolling machines lately, and got curious about making it on a trip, with dried ingredients. So - yesterday I mixed:
1 oz semolina
2 oz white flour
heaping tsp egg powder
about 3 1/2 tbsp water
Blend the dry ingredients before adding water (especially important with dried eggs which are sticky). Kneaded it for about 4 minutes, until it smoothed out and gained some elasticity. The dough needs to be wet enough to squish, but dry enough that it doesn't try to adhere to the counter. Often I start out with a dough that's a little too wet, and correct it by sprinkling flour on the counter and working it in as part of the kneading. Then put the rolling pin to it, rolling only in one direction to get a long thin strip of dough. Coat the strip with flour well during the rolling process. Get it as thin as you can manage. Then roll up the strip into a cylinder, slice into 1/4 inch wide chunks, unroll, and drop in boiling water. Cook 3-4 minutes. Worked just great. For those willing to travel with fresh eggs - remove the egg powder and water above, and replace with one large egg.

Semolina is not necessary, adding it makes for a pasta that stays firmer, with a little more "bite". Adding just a bit more water in the mixing would make the dough soft enough to allow rolling to be accomplished with a nalgene bottle. Then let the sheets dry for 10 minutes before rolling up and slicing. The sheet needs to be dry enough that it's not too stretchy, or it will be hard to handle.

This is one that you'll want to "get to know" in your kitchen, but is really worthwhile, as with very few tools (bowl, turned over kayak, nalgene bottle) you can get a big upgrade on your carbs source. Fresh made is even better than the stuff that comes out of the supermarket cooler. And it packs as a plastic bag of flour, which is ideal.

On my upcoming trip, am taking 3 servings of "fresh" pasta (6 oz dry ingredients per person). Should be a fun test...

Mike

Making pasta worked well, here is a photo of slicing noodles out of a rolled up sheet of dough, with a stick paddle drying rack in the background. Using 6 oz dry wt of dough mix, meals for two is about as far as I'd want to go with this, as the rolling out and slicing could get pretty time consuming. In order to make the rolled sheets more manageable, I cut the dough into quarters and rolled out 4 separate sheets. The unrolled dough was kept under the blue bowl, so it wouldn't dry out too much while it was waiting its turn. I used a small stainless thermos for a rolling pin, because pasta dough needs to be fairly dry (or it will stretch apart on the drying rack), and the nalgene bottle was too large of a diameter to easily push the dough into a thin sheet. For this trip I tried a knorr sauce packet in one meal, and then a small jar of sundried tomato pesto in another. Found that the pasta flavor is mild, and a strong flavored sauce will cover up its flavor completely. The pesto worked good, though.

Don't know that this would work very good in wet or very windy weather - though on a nice evening it was fun sitting out on the beach and making the stuff.

Mike

That pasta looks great. We make our own pasta all the time at home but I'd never considered making it when camping. Do you find there's any difference with the powdered eggs in taste or texture ?

I mixed 1 part semolina and 2 parts normal flour, as the semolina makes for a firmer "bite" - and the texture is pretty much identical to what I get at home.

The egg flavor seems a little dependent on the brand of powdered eggs. I got some from Adventure Foods in the US several years back, and they were pretty good for flavor. Currently I'm using some that I've found at Galloway's in Richmond - which is convenient, but the taste is not as good. Can't complain too much I guess, as you don't find egg powder on the shelf just anywhere. So I'm careful not to put too much egg powder in the noodles, and the taste is good. Fresh eggs are certainly better though.

In general I really like Galloways - they are a cross between a health food store, and a bulk restaurant supply. They stock a lot of dry goods, and their variety is impressive.

Mike