Providing that you have a food processor and a pasta roller, you should find pasta both easy and rewarding to make, says Garry Watson, chef proprietor of Gordon’s Restaurant in Inverkeilor.
There really is no comparison between home-made pasta and the bought type, even in ‘fresh’ form.
I find it very satisfying and therapeutic to make and serve, rather like making home-made bread or ice cream.
Pasta rollers can be bought cheaply and come with spaghetti, tagliatelle and tagliarini cutters. Sheets of pasta can be used for ravioli, lasagne, cannelloni, tortellini, etc.
Although it does not take long to make, you need to allow time to rest the dough and allow the pasta to dry out to some extent. It seems a pity to mask the flavour of home-made pasta with over elaborate sauces, so keep them simple. A lovely, but very rich, example is fresh tagliatelle dressed with finely grated lemon zest, fresh parmesan and cream. You could use Greek yogurt for a lighter version.
Or make your own basil pesto and dress before serving and serve simply with summer tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. Try my basic pasta dough: place 175g of ‘00’ pasta flour in a food processor fitted with cutting blade. Blend for a few seconds, stop, and add 1 medium whole egg and 2 medium egg yolks. Blend again until the ingredients mix and just come together to form a ball. Wrap in cling film and rest in refrigerator for at least an hour. Attach your pasta roller to a suitable work surface. Set rollers to widest setting. Flatten the dough out slightly and feed this between the rollers while you turn the handle. Fold into three, flatten again and feed back through the rollers.
Repeat this about six times until the dough is silky smooth. Wrap in cling and rest again for 15 mins. Then pass through rollers reducing thickness each time and lightly dust with flour each time until it’s at its second thinnest setting, then finally pass through your desired cutter for tagliatelle or linguine or leave as is and use as lasagne, ravioli or tortellini.
Allow pasta to dry for about 10 mins by hanging on a rack before cooking pasta in boiling salted water, then dress with your desired sauce. Try preparing ravioli with various fillings from ricotta and spinach or minted pea to crab with ginger and coriander.
Chef’s tip
You can freeze the prepared ravioli and cook from frozen when required. This retains the fresh flavour and makes serving easier and delivers an amazing wow factor to guests without the stress.
