Learning to make pasta

My new toy

My new book

So, it's all about the Italian food round these parts! Making pasta has an extra nostalgic glow for me, as my parents used to make it when I was a kid. Breaking out the pasta machine for the first time, little sis and I reminisced about our childhood addictions to pasta dough. We loved the stuff, and Mum and Dad had to be vigilant to protect the dough from tiny thieving hands. I'm not sure whether I realised at the time that it is literally just eggs and flour - doesn't sound quite so appetising these days. The smell took me straight back to childhood, though, and I must admit I was a little tempted to give it a try...

First we made fettuccine. 

Rolling it out was a bit messy, but we got there in the end!

We served it with Marcella Hazan's fabulous ragù, in direct contradiction to her suggestion that ragù should be served with tagliatelle. Which are completely different from fettuccine, obviously! Apparently, fettucine are the ones that you cut with the pasta maker, but tagliatelle are cut by hand.

We also made the famous Marcella Hazan tomato sauce with butter and onion, which is the most unbelievably easy thing I've ever made. You pop tinned tomatoes, a whole onion chopped in half and a wodge of butter into a saucepan, cook for 45 minutes. Extract the onion and that's it. Amazing. Pretty tasty too. Mr 'Splorer even preferred it to the ragù. Personally I think that's going a bit far, but it was a great sauce.

Then, today, I had a go at tortelloni. At least, I think they were tortelloni. I thought tortelloni were like tortellini, but bigger. But Marcella says tortelloni (and tortelli) are the same thing as ravioli. So I may have made tortellini instead. 
The result was somewhat 'rustic', but I thought not too bad for a first try. I was mainly pleased that they didn't fall apart during cooking. The main issue was the point where they joined was a bit thick and stodgy, so I think I'll have to work on my technique there. But the filling was bloody lovely. Well, ricotta, spinach and prosciutto - what's not to like?! 

For 2-3 people, you start by mixing 2 large eggs with 115g flour (I used 00 flour). Marcella says to whisk the eggs and then gradually incorporate the flour. In my two attempts, the eggs have always escaped and it's just been a case of mixing it and adding more flour until it's not really sticky any more.

Then you knead it, a bit like bread, for 8 minutes - until it's 'as smooth as baby skin'. 

You divide the mixture into 6 equal balls. To put them through the machine, you squash the ball down with your palm.

Then you put it through the pasta maker, at the thickest level. Then you fold it into thirds and put through again (narrow end first), and then repeat a couple of times. Then you keep reducing the thickness of the pasta maker and putting it through. When you're making fettuccine, you can put the bits of dough through each thickness one after the other. But if you're making stuffed pasta, you just work with one bit of dough at a time (leaving the rest wrapped in clingfilm to preserve stickiness).

It took me a while to work out the method for making tortellini/oni, but this, I think, is how it's done. 

The final product, glistening with butter and Parmesan. Pretty damn tasty, though there's plenty of room for improvement.

But let me give you recipe for the filling, which was so delicious that I kept nibbling at it while making the tortelloni. Maybe I'm not that put of by a bit of raw egg after all...

Spinach, prosciutto and ricotta filling for pasta 
Adapted from The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

500g spinach
salt
2 1/2 tbsp finely chopped onion
75g prosciutto, chopped
45g butter
200g ricotta
1 egg yolk
60g freshly grated Parmesan
nutmeg

This recipe was originally with Swiss chard (and spinach as an option), but I found spinach much more readily available.

Wash the spinach in several changes of water. Take the spinach out of the water and put in a saucepan with just the water that clings to it. Add a large pinch of salt. Cover the pan and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Drain and, when cool enough to handle, squeeze out all the moisture and chop finely.
Meanwhile, put the onion, prosciutto and butter in a small frying pan. Cook over a medium heat until the onion is translucent. Add the spinach. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl, and add the ricotta, egg yolk, grated Parmesan and a tiny grating of nutmeg. Combine the ingredients with a fork. Taste and add salt if necessary.

This makes enough for two quantities of the pasta above, so serving 4-6 people.

So, this has been my introduction to the world of making pasta. I feel that I have a hell of a lot to learn, but happily it seems that you can muddle your way through to quite a delicious bowl of pasta. My instructions above are a mere summary of the detailed information in Marcella's book, so I would really recommend buying it for more info. Especially as they've put on such a nice hardbook cover (but inside it's still the same classic that my parents used to make their pasta from).