Nothing like fresh pasta.

As you may have noticed, i have a bit of a pasta obsession. Earlier this year, my lovely friends gave me a pasta maker to help me to keep busy, which i must say, was one of the best presents ever! So i've had a few attempts, most have gone pretty well with a couple of mishaps, but i suppose that is all part of the learning curve. 
It's quite easy when only making for 2-3 people, definitely do-able for a small dinner party, but is definitely time consuming when it's for more than 6 people ~ so it'd be more of a whole afternoon event in that case! 


Prep time: 1 hr (2 people) to 3hrs (6-8 people), this is mainly because there is just a lot of dough to get through, and you can only do a small part at a time.
Cooking time: 3-5 minutes


Ingredients (per person):
100g '00' Italian flour
1 egg 
20-30g extra flour
apron is advised, it is very flour-y


Method:
1. Put the flour onto a clean surface, making a well in the middle and put the eggs in. I think a well for 5 eggs is kind of the maximum, so if cooking for more, may need to do 2 batches.

2. Whisk in the eggs with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour.
3. When all the egg has been mixed in, use hands to put the dough together, then knead for about 5 minutes until dough is soft and bounces back a bit when you press in.
4. Cover in glad wrap, or with a clean tea towel for about half an hour.
5. After it has rested, tear off about a handful of dough, then flatten it on a floured surface.

6. Using the pasta maker, roll it through the 1st setting 2-3 times.
NB. Each setting is a different thickness, with the higher numbers being increasingly thin. 
7. Generally, i will try to roll it through each setting 2x before moving up a 'level', until the 6th or 7th level.
Tip: After you roll it through, lightly flour both sides, then fold in half or thirds, and put through the machine again. This helps to avoid it sticking together, and allows you to shape it to fit into the machine, rather than getting offcuts on the edge, which may lead to the dough getting stuck and ripping.

Flour and fold

When it gets a bit crazy long.

8. Then, depending on what pasta you want to make;

Fold into quarters, and gently slice into pappardelle, or different thicknesses of tagliatelle

Roll through cutter for spaghetti or fettucine

For ravioli, it's a bit more complicated and i had to you-tube the technique! 

You need to fold the pasta in half, then my pasta maker came with a special funnel-type device to lock in the pasta and put the filling in as you roll it through. 

NB. Need to make sure you fill it sufficiently as you roll through, otherwise you will get 'empty' ravioli with just air in it.

Alternatively, you can just lay out the pasta, put the filling in little balls, cover it with another sheet of pasta and cut into squares.

Such adorable fluffy ravioli pillows!

Also possible to make spinach fettucine by putting through the 'scrap'/'fail' pieces of ravioli dough through the machine again and cut it into fettucine!

Spinach and ricotta 'fettucine'

9. Once the pasta has been cut, make sure you flour it adequately so it doesn't stick together! If you're going to eat it quite soon, then just mixing through with flour and shaking it up so it doesn't stick together is adequate. Drying it out does help with its texture when cooking though (i think).

10. Drying the pasta: This is important so it doesn't stick together, and also keeps for longer. This will depend on your resources at home. I have found tying up the cooling rack (for cookies usually) is quite good, otherwise clean coat-hangers are good too, or an indoor clothes rack.

Laying it flat is ok too, but hard to cook without breaking in the middle.

11. Cooking fresh pasta should only take 2-3 minutes. Make sure the water is boiling and generously salted first, then put the pasta in. Check after 2 minutes, then every 30 sec or so after until it is al dente. Last thing you want after all the hard work is soggy pasta!