Fresh homemade pasta

Pasta at home requires just a little planning but very little technique.  It is helpful, though not necessary, to have a pasta machine to cut the dough.

If you use large eggs, the ratio for a good texture is one egg per 100g of flour.

I recommend using half Shipton Mill '00' Italian flour and half bread flour, but I have used all bread flour as well, or semolina, or a mix, and the results are still good.

Ingredients

For four people, use:

600g flour (mix 450g Italian '00' flour and 150g bread flour, or 3:1 ratio, if possible)

6 large eggs (for medium eggs, adjust flour quantities, e.g. 5 eggs and 450g flour)

Two good pinches of salt

Method

Work the ingredients together with a scraper for about 5-7 minutes, until completely integrated into a fairly smooth ball.  If it is very dry, add 15g water or olive oil to adjust, and if overly sticky, add a similar amount of flour.

Rest the dough for 30 minutes.

Divide it into 16 or 20 balls, then roll each one through the pasta machine, dust with semolina to keep the sheets from sticking to each other on a plate.

[If making the pasta by hand, roll the balls out with a roller or pestle, and then in the next step, just cut into strips with a knife].

Boil a generous pan of salted water, cut the sheets into your desired pasta form (we love wide tagliatelle).

Cook for about 2 minutes.  When the pasta starts to rise to the surface, it's ready.

Serve with your favourite sauce.  Wild garlic pesto is unbeatable when it's in season.

Added by: Marlon Jones