Lockdown life has spurred a wave of culinary creations in our homes, with many of us trying out new recipes and putting those ingredients that have been hiding in the back of the store cupboard for a while, to good use.
Here, our friends at ProCook, share the secret to making your own pasta. And, until we reopen, you can head to their website for all the kit you’ll need…
There is nothing better than homemade food, and although pasta can sound daunting it’s actually really simple to make and with our ProCook Pasta Maker you’ll be making spaghetti left, right and centre.
We did our research and read up on how long we should dry our pasta for before trying to cook with it and rather typically when looking to the Internet for advice, we found that everyone had a different answer. Some said a few hours, others that there was no need to dry it at all, but we were particularly convinced by a thread of comments we came across where drying your pasta for around 45 minutes seemed to be the only way to do it (and the many mentions of ‘my Italian grandmother has always done it this way‘ or ‘we’ve done it this way for generations in our family’ is what finally helped us make our decision!). Well, lo and behold, it worked! 45 minutes of drying and our pasta turned out absolutely perfectly.
Now we’re no pasta making experts so if you have been making homemade pasta for years and you dry it for much longer or don’t dry it at all we’re not suggesting you should start doing any differently, but if you’re a pasta making novice then we’d recommend going with the 45 minutes to begin with and altering it to your taste in the future. Ready to get stuck in? Shop our pasta maker here.
Top tip: just remember that if you’re planning on freezing your freshly made pasta that it’s essential to dry it thoroughly before freezing to avoid any mould forming, making it unusable.
Homemade Pasta
Equipment
- Pasta Maker
Ingredients
- 6 large free range eggs
- 600 g Tipo 00 flour
Instructions
- Place the flour on a board and make a well in the centre. Crack the eggs into the well and beat the eggs until smooth.
- Starting a little at a time, use a fork to slowly mix the eggs with the flour.
- Once combined knead the dough to develop the gluten until smooth. This does take a little while so stick with it! It should spring back if you dip your finger in it.
- Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.
- Dust your work surface and split the dough into four equal sections.
- Using the widest setting on your pasta maker, slowly feed the dough through the machine, fold and turn by 90 degrees before rolling through the machine again. Repeat this 5 or 6 times until your dough is as wide as the mouth of the pasta maker
- Continue this process while working down the settings, dusting with flour every so often to avoid it sticking to the mechanics of the machine and tearing.
- Once you have reached the finest setting on the pasta maker attach the cutting element and feed the dough through the machine. Support the pasta dough while feeding it through to ensure a smooth process and that even tagliatelle is formed.