I know, you now expect me to tell you about the secret doughs my ancestors used to make and how this knowledge was passed through the generations until it finally reached someone like me who is able to write about it on the internet.
No, sorry, but no. What you will get here are three very simple recipes for doughs you could actually use when cooking meals for you or your family or friends. They are not fancy, but delicious and very very simple. So simple that you can actually prepare them without taking a week off to gather the secret ingredients and form a spiritual bond with the elder spirits to make it work.
Still, feel free to enhance these recipes as you wish or just use them as they are to cook something that actually tastes good.
Pasta
Yes, you can and should make your own noodles. Good dough for noodles is incredibly easy to prepare and only consists of three ingredients. You can use this recipe to make Tagliatelle, Ravioli, you name it…
There is only one thing I would recommend you to have: a pasta machine. You can roll the dough by hand, but you really don‘t want to. Trust me.
Ingredients
- 1 Egg
- 80 of all purpose flour
- a pinch of salt
This is for one person. So just multiply this by how many persons you want to serve. Easy, right? Now take these three ingredients and knead them into a nice and even dough, put it in the fridge for 30 minutes and your dough is ready to be processed into what ever noodles you want.
Pizza
Even though you could use this dough on the same day, I would highly recommend to put it in the fridge for 3 days. Yep, 3 days. It will grow - a lot - and it will be so much better. So trust me, just let it rest and grow for 3 days, but not for any longer or it will grow and swallow your whole fridge, devour all food that is in there, become sentient, start a cult, sue you out of your own apartment and it will also start to taste kind of sour. So, keep in mind: 3 days in the fridge is the sweet spot.
Ingredients
- 500g of all purpose flour
- 1 package of dry yeast
- 2 table spoons of olive oil
- 1 tea spoon of sugar
- 1 table spoon of salt
- 250ml warm water
Put that all together and knead it until it is a nice and even dough. Now put it in a bowl, which you cover with a towel, and put it in a warm place, 30 degrees C is ideal, but a little less won‘t harm the process, and let it grow for 30 minutes. Now put it in something that won‘t explode in your fridge as the dough grows further, a plastic bag which you do not close tightly will do, and put it in the fridge for 3 magic days. After that you have the best pizza dough of your life, which you can now turn into pizzas for you and everybody else who likes pizza, which is basically every human ever.
Simple white bread using yeast
This one is kind of just a basic starter kit. If you use this dough as I will describe here, it will be boring. So take this recipe and always add something special. Nuts, herbs, tomatoes, vegetables cut into little pieces, bacon, get creative here! I also like to add a lot of spices, like smoked pepper, chili flakes, or anything else that comes to my mind.
Ingredients
- 500g of all purpose flour
- 1 package of yeast
- 200ml of warm sparkling water
Mix it, knead it, let it rest in a warm place for 30 minutes. Knead it again and make it „bread shaped“. Now let it rest for another 30 minutes and then put it into a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 30-45 minutes. Just poke into it with a fork and as soon as there is no dough sticking to the fork anymore, it is done. If you want to get a better crust, turn up the heat within the last 10 minutes.