How to make your own pasta

It’s hard to beat homemade, fresh pasta. It may seem complicated at first but stripping it down to the basic element – a good dough – makes it a whole lot easier. Once you’ve mastered the dough, your only decision will be the type of pasta you like and the sauce or other ingredients you would like to add.

Here, I decided to make a spinach tagliatelle. If you wish to make plain pasta, just skip steps 1-3 and obviously leave out the spinach.

Ingredients (makes approximately 500g of fresh pasta, feeding 4 people):
500g raw spinach
2 cups of flour
2 eggs
Pinch of salt

Method:
1. Add your spinach to a pot of boiling water, leave it for a minute or so to blanch.

2. Drain the spinach in a colander and squeeze out the excess water.

3. Place your spinach in a blender and pulse the spinach until you are left with a fine purée.

4. Add the flour to a large bowl or a clean work surface, making a hole in the center.
5. Crack your eggs into the hole. Add your salt.

6. Using a fork, fold the ingredients in on each other, then use your hands to knead the dough.

7. Roll the dough into a ball and cover the bowl with a damp cloth, allowing the dough to rest.

8. Use a rolling pin (in my case a wine bottle, which doubles and an equally enjoyable beverage) to roll out the pasta to about a 5mm thickness, cutting it to the width that will fit your pasta machine.

9. On the highest setting, or where the rollers are furthest apart, feed your dough through the machine.

Continue to feed it through until your desired thickness is achieved. Lay the pasta out on a clean, dry, floured surface.

10. My pasta machine, the Imperia SP150, has an additional attachment for cutting the pasta to two thicknesses, tagliatelle and spaghetti. As you did with the initial dough, rotate the arm, feeding your dough through the cutters.
11. Ideally you should dry your pasta on a suitable drying stand but, if you are going to use the pasta straight away, you can let it air dry on your dry, floured work surface though the pasta may tend to stick together.

So there you have it, a step-by-step guide to making your own fresh pasta. Download the printable version of this recipe.

You might also like to try this easy recipe for spinach tagliatelle with butternut, sage and mushroom.