Pasta made from scratch.. really easy and quick to make

Fresh home-made Pasta takes about 3 min to cook, more than half the time it would take you just to cook a packet of dried shop bought pasta. A pasta machine is not a costly commodity and is widely available in town, you can budget anywhere from R200.00 – R300.00 and it is well worth it. It usually comes with two different pasta cutters (Tagliatelle & Spaghetti) which can be easily attached to the machine itself. Semolina flour is best, but not a necessity. Pasta can be made with your everyday cake flour and comes out just as delicious.  You can colour your home-made pasta by replacing the water with a light puree, beetroot for purple, basil for green and even saffron for a nice orange tinge. The possibilities are endless.

 

You’ll Need:

1½C Flour – Semolina or Normal Cake Flour

2Tbsp Olive Oil

2Tbsp Water

½Tsp Salt

2 x Eggs

Method:

On a clean work surface, place the flour in a heap and make a well in the centre. Add the salt, olive oil, eggs and water, and then with a fork bring the flour from the outer circle into the centre. Cutting and mixing at the same time. Repeat till you have a well-combined dough forming. Press the dough together with your hands and knead slightly for 5 – 10 min till you have elastic dough. Form a ball, cover with cling film and refrigerate for 20 min. Cut the ball into required sizes about 2 -3cm thickness onto a well-floured work surface (not too much flour as you don’t want your pasta dough to become tough), roll out lightly and set the pasta machine on its largest setting which is usually setting 1. It usually has 7 settings ranging from large (1) to very thin (7) the pasta dough must go through setting 1 at least 4 times and twice through each of the remaining settings. The first time the pasta goes through the machine, fold it in halve and feed it through again. This feeding and folding is very important on each of the settings except at 7 where you will not need to fold but to feed it straight through.

 

 Lightly flour the thin sheet of rolled pasta and cover with a wet tea-towel.  Add the pasta cutter to the machine, choose the thickness you want either tagliatelle or spaghetti. Slowly feed the thinly rolled pasta through the cutters, so you can get nice and even pasta. Leave to air dry for 5 -10 min before cooking them in boiling salted water, remember to add a tablespoon of olive oil so the pasta will not stick to each other. Do not over salt the water as you don’t need as much salt as with shop bought pasta (and you just added salt to the fresh dough). The pasta should cook only 3 min, sometimes a minute less or more all depending on when the pasta is Al Dente.

All you have to do is add your sauce, serve with freshly grated Parmesan, freshly ground black pepper and some freshly torn basil leaves.  “Belizimo”

Once you are confident in making the everyday run of the mill pasta start experimenting with different colours and flavours. Beetroot puree is the perfect thing to tint the pasta dark red. Try Basil or Pesto for a green colour.