Ingredients
- As a main meal, with a medium-heavy sauce, calculate 100 g
- (30z) of flour per person. Use 1 egg per 100 g of flour.
- i.e. for 4 people, use 400 g (12 oz) of flour and 4 eggs.
- The best flour to use is durum wheat flour, but plain (all-purpose flour) works fine too.
Preparation
Step 1
. Make a cone with the flour and flatten the cone at the top to make a well. Break the eggs into this well. Add a pinch of salt if you wish.
. Work the eggs and the flour together with a fork, adding the flour from just around the eggs little by little, until you have a smooth dough, adding just a drop of water if necessary, and no more. As soon as you can, use your hands.
. Knead dough for 10 to 15 minutes, until it is smooth, firm, and quite elastic. Don't skimp on the kneading or the dough will tear while you're rolling it out. Leave to rest for 15-30 minutes.
. Divide the dough into two balls. With a rolling pin, roll the ball of dough out into a strip.
. Pass this dough through the rollers of the manual pasta machine until it reaches the proper thinness (usually the last but one setting). Between using numbers on the machine, allow the dough to rest for a few minutes on dish towels.
. Once you have the desired thickness, allow the dough to rest once more (dusting with a little flour if it seems at all sticky), before you cut it using the machine cutters.
. Dust the cut pasta with flour and allow to dry on dish towels for 1-2
hours, making sure the strands are well separated and not stuck together.
. Cook for 3-5 minutes in plenty of salted boiling water. Keep tasting until you taste a texture which is a little harder than the desired one (the pasta will keep cooking while you are dressing it).
. Drain, keeping some of the cooking water aside. Dress the pasta with your sauce, mixing well and adding some cooking water little by little to help
amalgamate it with the sauce. Serve immediately!
NOTES
Storing uncooked fresh pasta for later use is tricky - it always dries out too much. If you have a lot of it, it is better to cook and dress it all.
Leftover pasta in Italy is much-loved by cats, but there are many ways for humans to enjoy it too! Simply reheating it and adding an egg, to scramble in the strands, is delicious.
Using it as the base for a frittata (the pasta goes all crispy) is another favourite, as is "pasta al forno" - add cooked peas and small pieces of mozzarella to the leftover pasta in an oven dish. Top with parmesan cheese and bake for 20 minutes approx, until there is a golden crust on the top.