How To Make Pasta

Ingredients

A simple recipe with only 2 ingredients:

• 400 g ’00’ flour – plus a little extra for dusting. ’00’ refers to the Italian style of flour grading. ’00’ is a finely ground Italian flour commonly used to make pasta and pizza dough. If you don’t have this available or run out, you can replace with a high grade flour.
• 4 large eggs.

How to make simple fresh pasta

We love taking two everyday ingredients and working them into something tasty. And there’s such a variety of pasta you can make from scratch! You will need a pasta machine to work the dough. And you can use a mixer with dough hook for kneading but we like to get stuck in and use our favourite kitchen tool… our hands!

• Sift the flour and place in a large bowl or on a clean surface.

• Make a well in the flour and add the eggs.

• Using a fork, whisk the eggs. Then slowly start drawing in the flour, until you can no longer mix with a fork. Work slowly to combine the ingredients well, it will be quite lumpy at this stage.
• Tip the mixture on to the surface and use your hands to bring the mixture together and form a ball. Knead the dough until smooth. Flour varies from region to region this could take from 5-15 minutes. (You can also use a mixer with dough hook to speed the process up).
• Form a ball, wrap with plastic wrap and place in fridge for 20 mins. (You can leave it wrapped in the fridge overnight, great for prepping ahead)
• Once chilled remove the ball and divide into 4 portions. Re-cover 3 portions, this will stop them from drying out. (You can freeze the dough portions at this stage, for fresh pasta on the go!)
• Set up your pasta machine to the highest setting. Slightly flatten the dough and flour on both sides.

Using a pasta machine

• Work the dough through the pasta machine, fold the dough in half and work through the machine again. Repeat this process 4-6 times to improve the texture, re flour both sides of the dough as required. As you work the dough turn in so opposite sides are going through the machine first. If it starts getting too wide fold the dough in thirds and work it through, this is going to help you create the pasta sheet shape that you want.

• Continue to work the dough through the machine and down the settings until you reach the desired thickness. 2mm thickness works well for linguini.
• Place the dough on a light flour surface and flour both sides of the dough. Then cut the length in half. Place the linguini cutter attachment on to your machine and work each sheet of pasta through it.
• Place the cut linguini on to the floured surface then dust with flour. Make sure to lift the pasta and dust flour all over. This will stop it from sticking, while you prepare the remaining dough.
• Place a large pan of water on to boil, add a pinch of salt. Repeat the process with the remaining portions of dough, until all the pasta is cut.
• Once the pan is boiling add the pasta and allow to cook, this wont take long, around 3-5 mins. Once cooked drain and serve with you favourite paste sauce. Enjoy!

We hope our how to make simple fresh pasta guide starts you on your journey of delicious pasta making! Be sure to snap some photos and share with us on social. Can’t wait to see what you create!

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Happy cooking!