How To Make Your Own Pasta

This is for Carmen, who is beautiful and loving and fun.

I made fresh pasta last night. I am not much of a measurements girl,  but I’ll give it a go telling you all how I made it.

400g Flour

4 eggs

A bit of oil…

So you can either put the flour in a mound on the table, make a well in the center, put the eggs into it, and then use your finger to gradually pull the flour into the egg mix. Once it’s all mixed together kneed it for a good 10 minutes. You will know when it’s ready because it will look silky.

Now, you really don’t want to make this without a pasta maker, but you can if you wish. Put it on the highest setting (7 on mine) and push the pasta through. Then fold it into thirds, and repeat. Do this about 4 or 5 times. This helps to kneed the dough further, and to get it really extra silky and smooth.

Then push it through at each level indicated on the side. I never really do this- I can’t be bothered to put it through 7 times!! I usually just do settings 7, 5, 3 then 1.  Sometimes I just leave it on 2 or 3, and that leaves me with a slightly thicker, easier to use pasta. Particularly good if you like pasta, and make lasagna with it.

When I’m on about setting 5, I usually cut my really long sheet in half. I’ve found that doing that really makes my pasta better, because it doesn’t curl up at the bottom. And covering the pasta generously on both sides with flour after that setting 5 roll will help a lot as well.

Cover it again with flour on both sides when you’re finished. This means it won’t stick together. You can either slice up the pasta yourself now for fettuccine, or spaghetti, or you can leave it flat for lasagna or cannelloni, or tortellini or ravioli. Or you can use the cutters that already come with it (most of the time), and make the pasta with that (like in the picture)!

Tags: cooking, food, pasta, Recipe

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