Fresh pasta dough

We had friends over for dinner a few weeks ago and we thought long and hard about what to cook for them. That’s when we remembered we have a pasta machine gathering dust in one of our cupboards. It’s been so long since we last used it you would not believe how much I love making fresh pasta dough. It tastes like no other, it even makes whatever accompanying sauce taste better. Plus I adore to be able to cut it in whatever shape I want.

For those who don’t have a pasta machine at home I am not going to lie, it is a lot more work, you need strong arms to make get the dough to be the right thickness with just a rolling pin.

I bought my machine on sale and paid 20€, a bargain. So if you are a pasta lover my advice is to invest in one. It makes pasta a ridiculously easy exercise and you only need 2 ingredients. The important thing is to cover the dough with cling film and chill in the fridge otherwise it becomes very dry very quickly. But you can always leave the cut-out dough out to dry, that way you will always have homemade pasta in your cupboard.

This recipe is my farewell to the culinary world that contains flour (and other things). For health reasons my husband and I started the Paleo diet 6 days ago. I will tell you more about this on my next post!

Fresh pasta dough

One serving needs 100g flour and 1 medium egg, so if you are serving 7 use 700g of flour and 7 eggs

Method:

1. With an electric mixer combine the eggs and flour. If the dough looks a bit dry add a little water, if too wet add a little flour. Keep in mind that the dough is very sensitive so you need to be very careful when adding either more water or more flour.

2. On a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Cover with cling film and chill for 30 minutes or until you are ready to cook it.

3. Divide the dough. If I am making pasta for two people I divide the dough in 2 and so on, this way I can measure the pasta for each serving, if you don’t use all the dough cover it again and return it to the fridge.

4. Sprinkle the dough with a little flour, open it with a rolling pin and pass it through the pasta machine starting with the widest setting or you can do this with a rolling pin, repeat this process until you get the thickness you want (the ideal thickness is around 1mm).

5. Now you can cut the dough however you want, you can make lasagna sheets, ravioli with crinckled edges or good old spaghetti. Get a good sauce going on the hob and cook the pasta in boiling water with salt for 3 minutes.