Fresh Pasta

Directions

• Place the flour on a work surface, preferably a wooden surface, and make a mound. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, salt and oil.
  In these photos I’m using double the flour and eggs, which will make about 1.6kg of pasta dough in total.
  
• Use a spoon or fork to scramble the eggs a bit before starting to mix in the flour.
  
• Start bringing in the flour a little at a time from the sides, using your fingers to mix into the eggs. Keep bringing in the flour until it is all mixed.
  
• Start to push the mixture together and form a dough. If it’s too dry, add a very small amount of water and keep kneading. Don’t add too much water or the dough will get sticky.
  
• Knead the mixture for about 10 minutes until it becomes elastic and soft. You’ll know it’s ready when you push your finger into it and it “springs” back.
  
  
• Form a ball, wrap in cling film and leave aside to rest for 30 minutes so the gluten can relax. You can put it in the fridge overnight if you like, the colour will darken but the taste will be the same. Leave at room temperature for 30 minutes before attempting to use it if it’s been in the fridge.
  
• Here’s two different doughs, the larger more yellow one is the one we’re making here. The other is made with Semolina flour and water and is more white and has a stronger consistency. It’s used for certain types of pasta that need more “strength” in the dough, but is also just a traditional dough from southern Italy which has a longer shelf life due to the absence of eggs.
  
• Next we need to roll out our dough, so we need to prepare our Pasta machine and flour the work surface. You can also roll the dough by hand with a rolling pin but it’s a bit more time consuming and takes some practice.
  
• Form the dough into a log shape cut one piece at a time, keeping the remaining dough wrapped in cling film when it’s not being used to stop it from drying out.
• Flatten the cut piece of dough and shape roughly to a rectangle. Pass it through the pasta machine at the widest setting 5 or 6 times, constantly folding it over and shaping it to a rectangle.
• Lightly flour the dough and then pass it through on the next setting, repeating this process until you get to the desired thickness. Generally the second from last setting is good for Lasagne, Penne or Spaghetti whereas the thinnest setting is good for Tagliatelle, Ravioli and Tortellini. Flour the dough regularly if it starts to get wet or sticky – this will stop it from sticking to the machine and to itself.
  
• Flour the dough again and pass it through whichever cutter attachment you want, to get the type of pasta you’re looking for. Alternatively you can just use the whole sheets as lasagne. Lay the cut pasta on a well floured surface so that it doesn’t stick.
  
  
• At this stage, you can freeze the pasta if you wish – the best thing to do is to freeze it on a tray and then transfer to bags once it’s frozen.
• If using the pasta immediately, boil a large pan of water and add a tablespoon of salt once it comes to the boil. Add the pasta to the water and boil for 3-4 minutes. Serve tossed in your favourite sauce and topped with grated parmesan and some ground black pepper.
• Hand Cutting Pasta
• You don’t have to use the cutters that come with the pasta machine to make Tagliatelle, Fettucine, Tagliolini, Papardelle etc. You can simply take a “lasagne” sheet of pasta (you mostly will want these to have been rolled to the thinnest setting on the pasta machine) and gently fold/roll it up (making sure to flour it well first so it doesn’t stick to itself. Once it’s rolled up, just use a sharp knife to slice it to the thickness you want. It’s really easy! I actually prefer to cut them this way.
  
  
• Other Type of Pasta
• These are a few other types I’ve attempted to make by hand. You need a gnocchi board (ridged board) with a wooden dowel for the Garganelli, some kind of wooden skewer for the Fusili and preferably a Ravioli cutter for the Ravioli and Farfalle.
  
• Garganelli (like Penne)
  
• Farfalle
  
• Fusili
  
• Ravioli