Pasta Making - Not as hard as I though!

So after a hysterically busy week, what is the best possible way to relax?  Obviously, learn how to make pasta? I must admit as I crawled out of the loving embrace of my bed to catch a train to Liverpool Street, I was a little cranky.

This was not helped as I had to fight through the trendsters of Shoreditch to reach Hoxton Street and the Open Kitchen and the London City Hospitality Centre.  They regularly offer cooking courses and have a proper teaching kitchen (full on stainless steel) on the top floor which we used to learn from a lovely Spanish instructor (Antonio).

Antonio began by explaining that essentially with pasta, you have 100g of pasta flour per large egg then 2/3 teaspoon of oil.    We doubled this quantity and produced enough pasta for 8 people for a starter.   So how did this work?

Basically put the egg, flour and oil into a bowl and mix until it starts to form dough.  Then tip it out onto the side and knead for about 10 minutes.  Mine when a little dry so I wet my hand and then kept kneading.  As Antonio pointed out, if you do this in little bits, you won’t overdo it.

The dough then needs to rest for the minimum of an hour up to 24-hours, the longer it rests, the better it seems.  We cut this into two balls.  Using one, we were then let loose on the pasta machines, starting on setting number one and moving up to seven.   When we ran the pasta through the machine for the first two times, we were told to fold it over and then run it over again.

When we had hit about 3 - to produce tri-colour pasta, Antonio had made some dough with spinach powder and some with beetroot powder.  We were each given a little ball and instructed to make this into sausages and then overlay this on the pasta when we had started to flatten.

We kept flattening the pasta and then moved on to Tagliatelle as well as ravioli and tortellini.  Tagliatelli essentially involves running one of the sheets of pasta through the cutting setting on the machine and then hanging it up to dry. 

Tortellini is a little more difficult!  Essentially, you cut the pasta into smallish squares, you then pop a dab of the mixture (we had spinach and ricotta) in the centre and then wet the edges of the pasta.  You then fold the square into a triangle and make sure that the edges have stuck together.  You then twist the pasta around your finger and stick the edges together and flip the top over.  This is incredibly hard to describe so look at this photo to get a better idea.

With the ravioli, you mark out the circles – without actually cutting through – on one sheet and then dap a little of the mixture into the middle of these. Dab water around each of the circles. Pop the second sheet on top of the first and carefully push down around the filling to get rid of the air before you cut out each ravioli.

I was feeling very pleased with myself, I had made pasta – woo hoo!  Antonio produced a glorious tomato, basil, garlic, chilli and parmesan sauce to try with his efforts.  Needless to say it was delicious.  Would I recommend learning to make pasta?  Completely and if in London, I would definitely recommend the Open Kitchen.

L xx

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @littleofwhatyou