Pasta Making
I make my own pasta for things like Bolognese Tagliatelle and Mushroom Fettucine. Years ago, my parents bought me an Imperia pasta maker. At catering college, among many other things, I had learned to make pasta in a commercial kitchen (and had come home raving about it). They also bought me a Bialetti Mokka pot. I still have both! Many many years, and a successful catering business behind me, they are still in use. When it comes to batterie de cuisine, it pays to buy the best you can (or get someone else to treat you!).
Making high quality pasta is really easy (and extremely cheap). You need flour and eggs. Yes, that's it! 6ozs of flour to a large (or a couple of small) eggs. I use an 80:20 mix of white and wholemeal flours. If you want green pasta, just add some home made spinach puree. If you want red, just add tomato puree. In both cases you'll need a little extra flour. Put the flour on the counter top and make a well in the centre. When you add the beaten egg to the flour, add only a little at a time and knead with one hand only (less messy). Don't add all the egg at once as you may not need all of it (depending on the absorbency of the flour).
A pasta maker is like an adjustable mangle, enabling you to roll you pasta, thinner and thinner. Once you've got to the finest setting, you use the cutter attachment (I have one for tagliatelle and fettucine). You end up with very long strands of perfectly made pasta.
Unless you want to cook it immediately, you'll need to dry it!
Here's the finished pasta wrapped around my rolling pin. My husband however, rigged me up this drying pole in my quirky, oddly shaped kitchen.
The Bolognese sauce is already on in the pan you can see on the left. I prefer to make my own; I know exactly what goes into it.
Enjoy :-)
Jane xx
Photo notes: Black and white shots made on a gifted Canon 400D in monochrome mode plus an £18 heavily used f3.5-5.6 18-55 IS STM. (My husband shot the photo of me on an EOS 5D)
