Pasta

⇐ Pasta & Pastry

Rolled pasta for ravioli or lasagne

Ingredients

This is the classic proportion - 1 egg to 100g flour.

per person

1 egg

100g pasta flour - italian '00', durum semolina or at a pinch bread flour

Since eggs bay in size, what I now do is to weigh the eggs and put in double the weight in flour which works out just about right

per person or tray of ravioli

1 egg (weighing n grams)

twice as much pasta flour as egg, i.e. 2xn grams

Method

1. Put flour and egg in blender and blend till have a bread crumb texture
2. Bring together as a dough on a surface and knead until smooth - it is likely to be very stiff and this kneading can be hard work.
   Or do by 1 & 2 by hand, mixing egg and flour and kneading. This may need more liquid - wash hands under cold tap and knead with wet hands
3. Allow to rest in fridge for 30 minutes at least, or even overnight
4. Use pasta machine to roll out pasta. I tend to pass it through a number of times on the widest settings, folding and turning the dough. Once it starts to feel smooth and silky pass it through cache reducing the settings gradually. I quite often then fold it double and go back up a couple of settings before rolling down to the lowest setting.

Hand rolled pasta - fileja

This is a hand rolled pasta from Calabria, e.g.Fileja with Nduja, Pasta Grannies, Laura
Ingredients

This makes a much softer dough than for ravioli etc. Enough for 2 small appetites

1 large egg (65g), or 1 smaller egg or 2 egg yolks and a little water to make up to 65g

100g pasta flour, tipo '00'

Method

1. Put flour and egg in blender and blend till have a bread crumb texture
2. Bring together as a dough on a surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth. Allow to rest for 30 minutes or longer in the fridge
3. Once rested, it's time to play with plasticine. Break off a manageable size chunk of the dough. We're going to roll the dough into strings. I use a wooden board, dampening it very lightly with a damp cloth to make sure the pasta rolls rather than sliding. Roll by hand into thin sausage shape and cut into pieces. Exactly how you do this does not matter, but you are looking to make little strings 10cm long and about 5mm in diameter. As a guide, for this quantity of dough I divide into four, roll each piece into fat sausage, cut in half and roll each piece a little thinner, repeat, repeat, repeat. Each quarter makes about 16 pieces of pasta.
4. Then, in turn, twist each pasta piece round a stick or rod (I use a thin tapered chopstick, or better a wooden saté skewer). Then pressing and rolling on a surface flatten the little sausage round the stick. Push off stick and you should have a spiral ribbon of pasta.
5. Repeat with remaining dough.
6. Cook in boiling, salted water for 5 minutes or probably longer if you don't like it too chewy

Fileja