Making fresh pasta

Pasta waiters

My grandsons came for a holiday and one night we set up the pasta machine so they could learn to make pasta. I have never had better students. At no time did they get the pasta stuck in the machine as they achieved the right consistency from the start and managed the technique very quickly.

We used one egg for one cup of flour (Bakers Flour) and added just enough water to hold the pasta together, it wouldn’t have been more than one tablespoon. The pasta machine is an Imperia, much superior to the Mercato I have in Brisbane, why? because unlike the Mercato, the Imperia’s rollers are even and the calibration mechanism is precise.

Left BEN Right WADE

The broom handle was wiped over and set up between two chairs so the pasta could dry a little, but not be too stiff. It took around 15 minutes and it was ready to be fed back into the machine’s tagliatelle cutting blades.

Pasta drying

The rich egg pasta was the hero so we kept the sauce simple, just sauteed tomatoes, onions, garlic, a little chilli and a few anchovies cooked until they melted into the sauce. As we were ready to serve the sauce, we added lots of fresh basil and rocket grown in our street. Ben delivered a tray of our fresh pasta to the neighbour who grew the herbs. So once again, we were on track with sourcing most of the ingredients locally with the exception of the flour. Roz