Make fresh pasta in only one hour, but it comes out tasting amazing, even better than store bought pasta! It is all very simple, with little ingredients and a very easy method, and all you need is to add in a little love and make it so much better!
Once you make your pasta, check out here, to find some awesome pasta sauce recipes that you can use to pour over your freshly baked pasta, and make it taste even better!
Fresh pasta ingredients!
- 6 large free range eggs
- 600 g Tipo 00 flour
As you can see there is very, very little ingredients in this recipe, you can add in some salt and pepper too.
So, now that we have all the ingredients, it is now time to get onto the easy, but also fun method!
Fresh pasta method!
Place the flour on a board or in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and crack the eggs into it. Beat the eggs with a fork until smooth. Using the tips of your fingers, mix the eggs with the flour, incorporating a little at a time, until everything is combined. Knead the pieces of dough together – with a bit of work and some love and attention they’ll all bind together to give you one big, smooth lump of dough!
Once you have made your dough for the fresh pasta, then you need to knead and work it with your hands to develop all of the glutton into the flour. If you do not do this, your pasta is going to end up soft, flabby and probably turn into mush when you cook it when in reality it should be al dente, and springy.
There’s no secret to kneading. You just have to bash the dough about a bit with your hands, squashing it into the table, reshaping it, pulling it, stretching it, squashing it again. It’s quite hard work, but it is definitely worth all of the hard work in the end ! You’ll know when to stop, stop when it’s when your pasta starts to feel smooth and silky instead of rough and floury.
Next, wrap your dough in clingfilm and put it to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour make sure the clingfilm covers it well or it will dry out and go crusty round the edges, this will give you crusty lumps through your pasta when you roll it out, and nobody wants crusty lumps in their pasta!
Next, its time to roll your pasta, but don’t be scared, you do not need a pasta machine to make the pasta! When it comes to rolling, the main problem you will have is getting the pasta thin enough to work with. It is quite difficult to get a big lump of dough rolled out in one piece, and you need a very long rolling pin to do the job properly.
A way to avoid this is to roll lots of small pieces of pasta rather than a few big ones. You will be rolling your pasta into a more circular shape than the long rectangular shapes you’ll get from a machine, but if use your head and you’ll be all good!
Whether you’re rolling by hand or by machine you’ll need to know when to stop. If you’re making pasta like tagliatelle, lasagne or stracchi you’ll need to roll the pasta down to between the thickness of a beer mat and a playing card; if you’re making a stuffed pasta like ravioli or tortellini, you’ll need to roll it down slightly thinner or to the point where you can clearly see your hand or lines of newsprint through it.
Once you have rolled out your pasta, they way you want it, cut it or shape it straight away. Pasta dries super quickly so no matter what recipe or shape your doing, don’t leave it for any more than a minute or two, if you want to prevent or slow down the drying, lay over a clean, damp towel! The your fresh pasta is ready to cook!
And that is it! For a sauce to use with your fresh pasta, click here!
