properpasta

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Making your own pasta is easy, you will need:

350g (12oz) strong plain white flour

3 fresh eggs

salt

The better quality you choose for your ingredients, the better the pasta will be!

Put the flour mixed on the work surface or in a bowl, if you prefer so, and make a hollow in the middle, beat the egg, adding a little salt, with a fork and put the mixture in the hollow. Use your hands to knead all together until it becomes a smooth dough. Alternatively you can use a mixer/ food processor using the kneating hooks at lowest speed. Knead the dough for at least 10min until it is smooth and silky.

You can use a pasta machine to roll out and cut your pasta, in this case just follow the guide book provided with your machine or you can roll the pasta the old-fashioned way with a dough roller (I prefer the wooden ones) until it is as thin as you want it and cut it in the desired shape. Put the cut pasta on a clean tea towel and let it dry for at least one hour before cooking. Hint: Don't try to roll all the dough at ones, divide it in small, more manageable, portions.

For each 100g (4oz) of pasta you will need one litre of water and a pinch of salt. Wait until the water is boiling at its maximum and then add the pasta, stir gently during cooking and try every minute or so (fresh pasta takes only a few to cook) if the pasta is al dente. Al dente is the Italian expression for "to bite" means that the pasta is not too soft and not too hard, just so that you feel you have "to bite" rather then just to swallow it.

Do's:

Have the sauce ready and the guests seated before you cook the pasta!

Don'ts:

Don't put oil in the water as it prevents the sauce from sticking to the pasta.