My basic do everything pasta recipe. I use medium eggs – if you use large reduce the water content. If the dough is too sticky add extra strong flour.
There are alternatives on the internet, and you can get Tipo 00 flour easily enough in most places. I can’t without buying in bulk off the internet – hence this recipe was born.
Prep: 5min Rest: 20min Roll: 5min
Ingredients
60g strong bread flour
60g semolina flour
60g plain flour
1 egg
80ml water
Method
1. Put all the flour in a bowl and add the egg, mix gently.
2. Add most of the water and stir until it almost comes together, add the last bit of water if you need it, but always err on the side of crumbly.
3. Tip it onto a board and work (knead) for a few minutes until you have a smooth dough. Add extra strong flour or water if you need to.
4. wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 20min – this is important because the dough rests and the consistency changes a lot – it becomes much more elastic.
5. you’re ready to roll…
Rolling out the pasta is where the skill comes. A pasta machine is just so easy I totally recommend one. I have an ‘Atlas’ and any decent pasta machine will last you a lifetime. I only make pasta sheets, linguini and tagliatelle pasta with it, but I also use it for dim sum and gyoza wraps, and for making super fine pastry sheets (for samosas) because it just works so well.
The key is to roll the pasta through every stage – don’t skip a setting. And put it through a few times on ‘0’ fold and repeat to get a perfect dough – it feels silky and smooth, almost oiled. For linguini I stop at ‘5’ for tagliatelle and pasta sheets ‘6’ for some pastry wraps ‘7’. If the pasta crinkles as it comes out – then fold it in half and go back one step. If it keeps crinkling you’ve made it too thin.
Just try it, do it once to get the hang of it then it becomes easy. Rather than making chefy loop like they do on ‘masterchef’ etc I just cut the raw pasta into 4 and roll these as strips.
To cook – it takes about 3min in boiling water – keep testing after 90 seconds and drain immediately it’s ready. it will carry on cooking on the way to the sink and I always add a tiny bit of oil to the drained pasta before serving or mixing with a sauce.