By Suki Baynton
Ever fancied cooking something so amazing that it wowed you and your loved ones? But were then reminded by the disastrous result that you can’t actually cook, and the recipes may as well be printed in a foreign language as that’s how much sense they make to you? And what even is a Sous-vide? Does it come with a side of chips?
If this is you, I am here to give you great news, I learned something recently that has changed my cooking game (and is proving pretty handy in the current pasta shortage!). Bearing in mind I once made my husband mushroom stroganoff (I know right?) but didn’t realise I had to burn the alcohol off the brandy… yep.
So, I give to you, my gift of easy-peasy handmade egg pasta. It is amazing to eat, simple to make and can be made with your basic store cupboard ingredients. Use any flour you like. Win, win, win!
Handmade egg pasta
So, we're lucky enough to live on a smallholding. Along with our incredibly naughty goats we also have an orchard full of chickens, ducks and geese. Sounds idyllic I know; try rescuing a goat that doesn't want to be rescued from the wrong side of a fence in the pooring down rain... less romantic now isn't it... anyway I digress. We have a lot of eggs from our lovely girls and what do you do when you have lots of eggs? you get creative!
Happy chickens
Ingredients
Hold on to your hats, there are only two:
- 300g flour (whatever you have)
- 2 eggs and 4 egg yol
Now I know you’re wondering what the catch is, no ‘00’ pasta flour? No semolina, no fancy ingredients? No. This is tried and tested (by me and Steve; a lot) and is far superior to the dried variety you buy in the shop.
Also, note the difference in the egg sizes. So not everyone will have chicken, duck and goose eggs to hand. This recipe assumes you are using chicken eggs. If you just happen to have duck eggs, I prefer to use them, but they are bigger and richer so use less: maybe 1 whole egg and 4 egg yolks - or - 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks.
If you just happen to have a goose egg lying around; ONE. You use one.
Simple ingredients
Method
Mixing for those of you with a food processor:
Chuck the ingredients in and blitz until you get what looks like breadcrumbs.
Then tip it out on to the side and compact into a ball shape and knead for a few minutes until it looks like it has all combined.
Rest for 30mins.
Mixing for those of you without a food processor:
Chuck the ingredients into a bowl and either using a wooden spoon to mix first or your fingers (to really get in there) mix together.
Mix, bash and squidge the contents up until it all starts coming together into something that looks like dough.
Don’t worry if it isn’t mixed perfectly as the next step is to tip it out on to the side and knead for a few minutes until it looks like it has all combined.
Rest for 30mins.
Pasta dough
Rolling
Rolling for those of you with a pasta roller
Dust the roller off and give it a rinse from the 3 years it has been sitting on your shelf unloved…
Cut the rested dough into two or four. Two if you have a pasta rack and have somewhere to hang long pasta; four for everyone else.
Dust the side, and with a rolling pin, roll your dough until it’s less than 1cm thick. Shape doesn’t really matter here, as long as one side of it is slim enough to fit into the pasta roller.
Set your pasta roller to its thickest setting, fold your dough in half length ways and run through. Fun right? Now do this again and again, folding and rolling until it looks like thick lasagne sheets and has a slight sheen to it.
This could be 5-10 times really, probably depending on how well you were able to mix it.
Now you can run from the widest to the thinnest setting on your machine until you have long sheets of pasta!
Pasta roller
Rolling for those of you without a pasta roller
Cut the rested dough into two or four. Two if you have a pasta rack and have somewhere to hang long pasta; four for everyone else.
Dust the side, and with a rolling pin, roll your dough until it’s less than a cm thick.
As you’re not using a pasta roller, you won’t have anything to ‘shape’ it for you so I would try and keep this as rectangular as you can, so it doesn’t become unwieldy but don’t get obsessive.
Now, fold your dough in half length ways and roll, fold again and role, you’re aiming for about 5mm (0.5cm or 1/4inch), fold again and roll, if the shape is getting wayward, just tuck the sticky-outy bits back in, fold in half and roll again.
Keep doing this until it looks like thick lasagne sheets and has a slight sheen to it.
Preparing your pasta dough
Re-flour the side as you will now be rolling thinner and thinner and the pasta will get longer and longer.
As you don’t have a pasta roller, you will be doing this by eye, but be patient, aim to roll it thinner, step by step in about 10 goes. Your final pasta will be thick enough to hold its shape, be picked up and if you hold it to the light you will see a glow through it. Too thin and it won’t make it to the pan I’m afraid, although you’ll be fed up long before that happens. Liken it in your head to rolling pastry.
Tada!
Now you can either cut into lasagne sheets, long wide strips so it’s like pappardelle (my favourite), or whatever fancy shapes you feel like trying.
To cook the pasta, pop into boiling water which is (as my old favourite Rick Stein says) "as salty as the sea" this might seem worrying but fresh pasta only takes a few minutes to cook compared to 15 minutes for dried pasta, so it won't absorb it all.
Maybe you could combine this with Alex’s wild garlic pesto from her wild garlic recipes for a super smug dinner??
Let us know how you get on, bonus points for a picture!
Absolutely delicious!
