Getting pastalicious

For some reason Reuben and Tilly were talking about homemade pasta recently, and I was sufficiently inspired to dig out a recipe, mix some dough and get my pasta machine out of the cupboard.  And the results were really, really good!  I've bought fresh pasta in the supermarket over here, and it's actually not that great - quite rubbery and dense in fact.  But this homemade stuff was, as the Masterchef judges like to say, light and silky!  Here is the master at work:

So if the pasta was so good, why the long hiatus?  My pasta machine hasn't been out of the box since we moved to Auckland and I think the last time we used it was in Oxford when we'd invited Fulvio round to dinner at my flat on the High Street.  Dave and I had carefully mixed the dough, put it through the rollers until it was beautifully thin and then through the cutters to make tagliatelle, at which point we draped it over some tea towels on the back of a chair until we were ready.  We were all chatting in the kitchen over a glass of wine while the sauce was cooking, when we realised that Fulvio was sitting on the back of the chair and yes, the tagliatelle was now stuck together where the imprint of his Italian posterior had rested.  I think we had to cut that section out, and not that there was anything off-putting about eating tagliatelle that had been blessed in this way but maybe subconsciously I began to think that making pasta was a bit too much like hard work!

But here is the end result from the other night, ready for cooking: 6 nests of tagliatelle and not an Italian bottom in sight.

For anyone who's interested, here's the recipe.  These ingredients will make the quantity of pasta shown above:

Pasta dough

300g flour (see below)

3 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 tsp salt

Make a heap of flour on work surface.  Break eggs into a dip in the centre.  Add salt.  Gently whisk eggs and then start to draw in the flour from the sides.  I used a palette knife for this.  Keep going until a rough dough has formed.  

Then start to knead... and keep going... and keep going... until the dough is smooth.  If the dough starts to stick to your hands, add a little sprinkle of flour.  If it is dry and cracked and won't combine properly, add a teaspoon of water at a time until it becomes smooth.  My dough seemed quite solid and needed at least 10 minutes kneading.  

Wrap and put in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes before proceeding to the rolling out.

Not exactly complicated!  However, a note about the type of flour.  Italians obviously use the type that is normal in Italy, i.e. tipo 00, which you can get elsewhere but I don't have any in the cupboard.  I used what is called 'high grade flour' in New Zealand, which is 11% protein.  At some point I'll get round to making it with normal plain flour (10.5% protein) and tipo 00 (no idea) to see if there's any difference in texture.

We served our pasta very simply with pesto and the tomato salad you can see in the picture and it was damn good.  And because it does seem so much lighter in texture than dried pasta, you can eat an awful lot more of it before you feel full!