The sun was shining, the children were playing, and I merrily made pasta. Simple egg pasta!! What I call one of life’s little pleasures. Flour, egg and salt. Store cupboard ingredients can be transformed into the most fabulous family meal. The wonderful thing with pasta is that you can add flavour to develop the taste, colour and texture. A simple spaghetti to a filled ravioli or tortellini. Perfect.
My fabulous photos do tell a story of my pasta making day. All my pictures were taken by the wonderful Vanessa Kimbell, author of ‘Prepped’. Vanessa has promised to show me how to make a delicious spicy authentic curry and in exchange, I went along to her family home and went through the simple method of making pasta with her. Elbow grease was needed to say the least. By the end of the day I had kneaded 1KG of pasta dough, and run it through my pasta machine. Now if I am to be completely honest, the reason for the blisters are because I forgot to bring along the handle to the pasta machine. NIGHTMARE, yes indeed!! So instead of travelling home, I fitted the hole with a screwdriver and had to make do!! Not ideal, but I was absolutely determined to make pasta!!
The dough then needs to be fed through the pasta machine. Starting from the widest setting and then working down to the thinnest setting. The dough will become incredibly long and thin. You may need another pair of hands.
Now feed the dough through the cutting side of the pasta maker. The picture below are for the delicate spaghetti that we fed the children for lunch.
We then made a light beetroot dough. We used exactly the same method as above , and simply grated in some cooked beetroot and combined all the ingredients into a dough.
When the dough was passed through the pasta machine, Vanessa and I then used cutters to cut out the dough and filled the ravioli with a simple spinach and ricotta filling. I will over the next few weeks write a full pasta recipe blog for you to follow. Until then I hope this may encourage you to have a go.
The rule you should follow is:
To every 100g of 00 flour you need to use one large egg. Then duplicate to the right quantity. Have fun and experiment.
When you cook pasta, ensure the water in your sauce pan is as salty as the Mediterranean. Use a simple sauce and remember to have fun.
I will be teaching a Pasta cookery class at the Bay Tree Cottage, in Northampton on the 27th November, so please have a look. In October I will also be running two courses from home, more details to follow.
