BLOGYSSEY: Easy Peasy Pasta Recipe

One year for my dads birthday (when I had far more money then I have now!) I decided to buy him a pasta-making machine. To be completely honest I can't remember why I bought it for him, it wasn't like we were a huge make-your-own-pasta family or anything, but for whatever reason, I did. To my memory since then (a few years ago now) we only ever used it twice. The recipe we were using seemed complicated, the process of making it too hard, and the taste was far from expected. This and the fact that I knew nobody who actually made their own pasta led me to believe that pasta making was difficult.

Within a month of being in Italy, more than half of my pasta meals have been made with freshly made pasta that tastes even better than the store bought stuff. The first time I had it I was hugely impressed, thinking how amazing it was that these people had made it. When I mentioned this I received not thanks but looks of confusion followed by rather a lot of laughter. You see here in Italy EVERY woman knows how to make pasta, and usually has her own favourite recipe. It is so part of their lives that it seems ridiculous that I would find it so amazing. After this experience I decided if it was so ordinary here surely it can't be that difficult and I asked to learn. Only once I had made my own first batch of pasta did I realise just how easy it is. So to anyone out there who has had the same misconceptions as me about making pasta, here is an incredibly easy and yummy recipe you can use to wow anyone (well anyone except Italians!)

Pasta - Made by Me!

The real reason that I found out pasta making was so easy (or rather what was produced actually tasted good) was by learning a few tips and tricks that you wouldn't usually find in a recipe book. I will include these in italics along the way!

Ingredients:

Flour
Eggs
Pinch Salt

These are literally the only ingredients you will need. For quantities use the incredibly easy ratio of 100g of flour to 1 egg.

Something I have noticed being in Italy is Italians have something for everything. By this I mean they have pizza yeast for pizza, specific cheeses for specific meals and yes, specific flour for pasta. It is a pasta semolina but just using semolina should work also. If you choose to use this use approximately about 2/3 semolina to 1/3
normal flour. Giving about 66g semolina to 33g normal white flour to one egg. If you do not want to use semolina using normal flour will work perfectly fine!

Method:

1. Put flour and eggs into a large bowl. Mix together until all egg is incorporated into the flour.

2. Transfer dough and remaining flour onto a clean, floured surface and knead into a dry dough.

Pasta dough needs to be VERY dry. It will be tempting to add water or more eggs so the dough is wetter and comes together easier. DO NOT DO THIS! I promise if you keep kneading you will eventually get one ball of dough. Patience is key!

3. Continue kneading until the dough feels soft and elastic.

4. CHEAT: If you do not want to make the dough by hand and have access to a bread making machine you can make the dough in this on the basic dough setting. However, you will probably have to 'help' the machine to make sure all the flour is incorporated into the dough. Do this by moving the flour from the edges onto the central dough ball with a wooden spoon. If the dough does not feel soft and elastic at the end of the machine cycle, finish kneading it by hand for a few minutes until you achieve this result.

5. Cover dough in clingfilm and leave for at least 30 minutes.

In saying this the longer you leave it the better, so if it is a few hours there is no need to worry. It is said in Italy that pasta dough is ready when it sings. If you lightly hit the dough straight after kneading it there is only a very dull thud, but after leaving it to rest you will notice that the sound bounces back, this is it singing! When it does this it is ready.

6. Once your dough is ready it is time to make the pasta! Clear a space on a table and sprinkle on some flour. Keep this handy as you will need it later. Be prepared to make a mess, making pasta is not a tidy process!

Pasta Making Mess (there was flour all over the floor too!)

7. Set up your pasta machine on the lowest setting. Unwrap the dough and cut of a piece roughly half a fist in size and put it through the pasta machine (you will need to really push it through the first time!) If the pasta feels wet sprinkle on some flour, fold it twice and put it through two or three more times. It should be rectangular in shape.

8. Once the dough has gone through setting 1 a few times increase up to setting to 2 and put the dough through again.
Note: After setting 1 you do not need to fold the pasta dough anymore.
Keep increasing the settings on the machine, rolling the pasta through twice on each setting. Apply flour if it feels wet.
You can skip settings, for example I did settings 1, 2, 4, 6, 7. Most pasta machines go up to setting 10 and it is totally up to you what thickness you want to finish on.

Pasta Sheet Finishing Setting 7

9. Once you have your lasagne looking strip of pasta, apply a good amount of flour and then fold it half and half again until it is about 5 cm in height. Then simply cut along the width about 1.5 - 2cm wide. Unravel and ta-da, you have tagliatelle pasta!