Fresh Pasta Home made

Makes sufficient pasta for 2 to 3 people, this will vary with what recipe you use.

If you to make a larger quantity, you need to double or treble the mixture.

It takes a bit of time and a bit of practice, as well as a steady hand, however the end taste makes it well worth the effort.

Ingredients

250ml of cake flour or you can do it with chickpea, rice or mung bean flour

1 large Free Range egg

a little Cold filtered water

some flour for dusting

Method

Sift the amount of flour into a bowl and then form a well in the centre. Add the egg into the centre of the well. Mix it in with a fork until it is good smooth firm dough (add a bit of cold water if necessary).

Then, by hand, knead the mixture until all of the flour is absorbed into the dough. You can tell if the mixture is correct if the dough stops sticking to your hands or the sides of the bowl, and it is smooth and elastic. Adjust by adding a bit of water if to thick or a bit of flour of to runny.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

Prepare the work area

Dust your pastry board or work surface and rolling pin liberally with flour. Knead the dough again until it is again nice and smooth, sprinkle more flour if needed.

Hand Rolling

Divide the flour into four (for Lasagna or ravioli sheets) or eight (for tagliatelli, linguini etc.) equal sized balls.

Roll out each ball into a thin flat sheet. Keep it dusted with flour.

Rolling Method.

Roll from the centre to the top and then from centre to the bottom, then from centre to the left and centre to the right. Turn it over and after a dusting of flour repeat the process of rolling.

Cutting Sheets

For Lasagne cut the sheet into a rectangle.

For Ravioli or Pasta Skins, cut into smaller squares.

For Spaghetti, Tagliatelli, Linguini etc.,

Dust the surface of the rolled out sheet of pasta with flour; carefully roll it up into a Swiss roll. Then carefully cut the swiss roll into the width of the pasta you are going to make.

Unroll the the pasta carefully so as not to break them.

Drying.

Leave to stand for 10 to 15 minutes before using, or wrap in cling film and freeze, if you freeze the pasta never defrost cook it directly from freezer.