What a privilege it is to be shown how to make fresh pasta by Gennaro Contaldo. He is in Leeds to promote his new book 'Lets Cook Italian'. Gennaro is a brilliant teacher and as a partner in Jamie's Italian chain of restaurants he is in charge of training new chefs and developing the menus for their growing chain of restaurants.
Gennaro reminded me that making pasta is quite straight forward - easier than bread in many ways. It's best to use '00' flour which has been milled to a very fine grain. This
makes silky, smooth pasta which can then be fashioned into tagliatelle, ravioli and many other pasta shapes. I have to admit though that I did get my fingers in a bit of twist when he showed me how to twist the fresh pasta into cappellacci - little caps of pasta filled with buffalo ricotta, lemon and mint.
Gennaro used fresh pasta to make tagliatelle with mussels and wild mushrooms below. A fantastic dish with succulent mussels served on a bed of herbs and mushrooms and plenty of sauce to make the tagliatelle slip down - a kind of land and sea dish.
Gennaro adds just a little semolina to his pasta. If he is making a kilo of pasta he will use 850g '00' flour and 150g of semolina but either with or without semolina the pasta is gorgeous.
How to make Pasta fresca
Ingredients
Ingredients
Serves 2
100g '00' flour, plus extra for dusting
1 free range egg
Method
Place the flour in a bowl and break the egg in the centre. Mix with a fork and knead for five minutes by hand. Once the pasta has come together transfer to a work surface dusted with a little flour and use the 'heal' of your hand to stretch the dough. It should feel silky, smooth and elastic. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for at least half and hour. The pasta is then ready to roll out.
Rolling out pasta
When I spent two months living with an Italian family in Bologna our cook always rolled the pasta she prepared for the family into thin sheets using a rolling pin. This is very easy to do and sometimes when I cannot be bothered to retrieve my pasta machine from the cupboard I do just that. But it is quicker to roll larger quantities of pasta using a machine.
Divide the pasta dough into 30g lumps and feed them through the pasta machine gradually reducing the thickness between the rollers. You know the pasta is thin enough when you are able to blow the pasta gently to lift it from the work surface. It flutters like a leaf in the breeze.
Once the pasta is rolled out it can be cut up into strips for tagliatelle or cut into squares to make raviolli. Once made tagliatelle can be dusted with a little flour and laid on the work surface to dry for about half an hour. It is then ready to use. Any left over tagliatelle can be hung up to dry and stored in glass jars.
Rolling pasta
Making farfalle
Cutting tagliatelle
The finished dish - tagliatelle with fresh tomatoes and basil