Pasta dough

One of those days where we'd been to the park, the library, and collapsed in a heap with a cup of tea (lemon and ginger) on our return.

There was some debate about tea - I had three eggs that really needed using before they went off. You wanted pasta, not something eggy.

Fresh pasta and pesto won. This makes absolutely loads - we turned it into tagliatelli (hung up on a coathanger, to stop it all sticking together), bows/farfalli (take a rectangle and pinch it in the middle), papardelle (wide strips), and some lasagne sheets.

You'll need:

300g pasta flour (OO)
3 eggs

(You get the picture - it's essentially one egg per 100g flour.)

Whisk the eggs together to break them up, then tip into the flour (I tend to make a well in the middle and then pour it in). Mix to a stiff (not sticky) dough, and then knead for 5 minutes or so, until it starts to feel silky and malleable.

Leave for a few minutes (10 or so) to rest. I was looking at how Hugh Fearnley Whernly made his in the River Cottage Family Cookbook, and he was wittering on about wrapping the dough in a wet tea towel to stop it drying out, but I didn't bother, and it was fine.

Divide into six or so pieces. Shove each through the pasta machine on the widest setting, and then gradually decrease the setting so it becomes thinner and thinner. I find it helps if you dust the sheets with a little flour now and again, to stop it sticking (this was your favourite bit). If a sheet gets very long, I tend to chop it in half.

Once you have a flat sheet, either use a sharp knife to cut it to shape/size (you can ponce about and make all sorts of filled pasta as well, which is quite fun), or stick through the attachment on the machine to create tagliatelli. You did lots of bows today, and had great fun with some twists.

I tend to leave the pasta for a little while to dry out slightly before I cook it. It only takes 1-2 minutes, tops, in some boiling water. We ate ours with pesto tonight, some capers, olives and lots of grated cheese.