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Ingredients 3 cups Italian 'OO' flour, or high grade plain flour, 4 large eggs (for a richer taste, you can use just the egg yolks but you will need more eggs) pinch of salt Method Pour the flour and salt into a mound and hollow out the top a bit like a volcano. Pour the eggs into the hollow and whisk them with a fork, gradually combining the flour as well. Continue until it's all mixed thouroughly. The mixture shouldn't be sticky or dry and crumbly, somewhere in between. Spread a little extra flour on the table and knead the dough vigorously for at least 5 minutes, preferably 10 minutes, then place the dough in cling wrap or a freezer bag and let sit for 30 minutes. If rolling by hand, re-knead the dough for 2 minutes, then roll the dough out from the centre outwards and rotate it 90 degrees every so often until the desired thickness* is met. If using a pasta machine, break off about an egg sized piece of dough and flatten out with your hand until about 10mm thick. Then run it through the pasta machine at it's widest setting. Fold the dough in half and rotate it 90 degrees then run through the machine again. Repeat another 2 - 3 times, then run it through the widest setting again, but do not fold or rotate it. Run the dough through the machine on the next setting and keep repeating, on a thinner setting each time, until the desired thickness* is met. For lasagna sheets, the dough can now be laid on clean tea towels until ready for use. For noodles, they can now be cut and draped over something, so they don't get stuck together, until ready for use. Depending on the thickness*, fresh pasta cooks very quickly, usually between 20 seconds and 2 minutes in boiling water. For lasagna, fresh pasta sheets do not need to be cooked or soaked prior to putting them in the lasagna. *The thickness is largely personal taste. My pasta machine has 9 thickness settings. For fettuccine, I like fine pasta at a setting of around 7. For lasagna I like a bit more substance to the pasta and use a setting around 5. On the maximum setting of 9, I can almost read a newspaper through the pasta, and I use that for angelhair pasta and the like. The best way to find the thickness that works for you is just try several thicknesses til you find the one you like. |
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Whether it's fettuccine for a homemade carbonara or sheets for lasagna, nothing tastes as good as pasta you've made from scratch yourself. Although quite labour intensive compared to store bought pasta, this simple recipe will provide you with wonderful results. |