What a difference fresh (pasta) makes! 27 March 2006

I remember the taste of freshly noodles in one of those hawker stalls … but that was years ago, and in China to boot. How do you recreate a moment of long ago? Well, today we finally did it – we made our own fresh noodles (pasta, that is). It’s absolutely delicious, subtler in taste and texture of the dried pasta bought in boxes. We mixed our freshly made pasta with some salmon, basil and olive oil… delicious!

We were holding out to buy a pasta maker but finally gave in to the lure of making fresh pasta, having looked at 3 Italian cookbooks! They all say that you don’t need to make it perfect and that rolling it out using a good ol’ fashioned rolling pin is just as good. We had a rolling pin, and we weren’t striving for perfect, so no worries!

True enough, it wasn’t as intimidating as it seemed to be. Yeng did all the musclework; I did the cutting - the perfect tag team. Oh, and we all did the eating, obviously! Recipe follows:

You need:
00 flour, 1 cup (or bread flour if you can’t get a hold of any)
Semolina flour, 2 ½ cups (or 00 flour/ bread flour)
Eggs, 2 large
Egg yolks, 9-10 (though we ended up using just 6 because we ran out, ha ha!)
Semolina flour for dusting

Here’s how:

1. Make your dough (this is assuming you’re doing all this by hand).
Pile your flour on your working surface. Make a well in the center of the flour and add the eggs. With a fork, break up the eggs somewhat as you bring in the flour from the sides, mixing the flour in slowly.

When it starts to form a dough, you can start using your hands. Work the dough for 3-5 minutes (or until smooth), silky and elastic. Wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest in fridge for an hour.

2. Roll into sheets.

Get your dough from the fridge and divide into two balls. Re-cover one ball in plastic.

Flour your working surface. Now flatten the other ball with the palm of your hand. With your rolling pin, begin rolling it out away from you, dusting along the way. Repeat until you have a very thin sheet of pasta – about 1-2mm thick.

Do the same for the other ball.

3. Cut it up! With a sharp knife, cut the sheets into your desired width.
Papardelle: 1 ½ inches wide
Tagliatelle: About ¾ inch wide
Taglierini: About 3/8 inch wide

Gently toss to separate the strands and remove excess flour. You can cook this straight away. Or if placed on a tray and covered with a well-wrung damp cloth, it remains fresh and pliant for 3-4 hours.

Or you may want to dry your pasta out. Hang for 3-4 hours and store in an airtight container. It keeps for about 2 months. Or so the books say. I have a bunch here at home and will have to test that out!

In the meantime, our stash is there. I guess we don’t have pasta on our shopping list for a few weeks!

Based on: Jamie Oliver’s Special Pasta Recipe, The Naked Chef, pp. 47-54. All the while peeking into Contaldo and Carluccio’s cookbooks.