Pasta is a staple in traditional Italian cuisine. This food product made of unleavened dough was already known in early 12th century and it is a principle ingredient of many dishes. Nowadays pasta comes in varieties of shapes and colours, but traditional recipe is really simple and so are the ingredients. Here is a secret formula for delicious fresh egg pasta (known in Italian as pasta fresca or pasta fatta in casa or pasta all'uovo). It tastes so much better than one bought in the shop.
Ingredients:
200g ‘00’ type flour (Farina tipo –soft Italian flour)
2 large organic eggs
Salt
(one egg for every 100 grams (3.5 oz) of flour)
Farina Tipo "OO" is the best kind of flour for making most kinds of fresh pasta. It is made with soft wheat (farina di grano tenero) that has been very finely ground and all impurities removed. Farina gives the pasta a lovely texture, somewhat firm but not nearly as firm as store-bought pasta. If you can't find this type of flour, regular 'all purpose' flour can be used. Some people also mix all purpose flour with cake or pastry flour, trying to achieve the texture of farina. Various stores offer “fresh pasta” made with semolina flour, which is the kind of flour used to make 'industrial' pasta like spaghetti, penne, etc. However it gives the pasta a hardness that is not characteristic of fresh pasta.
Method:
1. Place the flour and salt on a clean work surface or in a bowl. Make a hollow well in the middle and crack the eggs into it.
2. Begin to mix around using the tips of your fingers, incorporating a little at a time, until everything is combined. At first it will look rather crumbly, but keep working in a circular motion, to bring the flour and egg together to form dough.
3. Now knead for ten minutes or until the dough is very smooth and elastic. Use the heel of your hand and your upper body weight to push the dough out along the work surface, then fold the dough back and press down on it with your knuckles. Give it a half turn and repeat, using a rhythmic motion. This process helps develop the gluten in the flour, otherwise your pasta will be flabby and soft when you cook it, instead of springy and al dente.
4. When the dough is silky smooth, shape it into a ball. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave to rest in a fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour. Make sure the cling film covers it well or it will dry out and go crusty round the edges.
5. Remove your pasta from the fridge and flour a rolling pin and work surface. If using a machine to roll your pasta, make sure it's clamped firmly to a clean work surface before you start (use the longest available work surface you have) Now roll out the dough to about 1/2 cm thick.
6. Pass it through the machine set at its widest setting. Do this a couple of times, before reducing the width by one setting and passing through. Repeat the passing / reducing width process until the desired thickness of pasta is reached.
7. If you haven't got a pasta machine it's not the end of the world. Most of Italian housewives rolls pasta with their trusty rolling pins and they wouldn't even consider having a pasta machine in the house! When it comes to rolling, the main problem you'll have is getting the pasta thin enough to work with. It's 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. The way around this is to roll lots of small pieces of pasta rather than a few big ones. You'll be rolling your pasta into a more circular shape than the long rectangular shapes you'll get from a machine, but use your head and you'll be all right!
8. 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.
9. Once done cut your pasta with a knife or cutting device on your machine into the desired shapes. Pasta dries really quickly so whatever recipe you follow don’t leave it for more than a minute or two before cutting or shaping it. You can lay over a damp clean tea towel which will stop it from drying.
10. Pasta is ready. You can now either hang it to dry or cook it right away in salted boiling water – it’ll only take a couple of minutes, unlike dried pasta, so keep an eye on it.
In the next recipe we will be using our fresh egg tagliatelle to prepare delicious pasta and hake dish with tomato sauce.
Enjoy!
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