Many people think that eating homemade fresh pasta is truly a privilege. That's right, it's a privilege that many others could also enjoy, because making pasta at home is much easier than most people think. Today Raquel, author of Los Tragaldabas, shows us how to do it and offers a recipe with that freshly made pasta that you'll love!
Fresh pasta was one of my pending tasks. I have to say that although I'm not bad at cooking, pasta intimidated me a bit. The same happened with bread: when you try it you realize how long you've been missing out on this incredibly easy and delicious preparation!
The classic Imperia pasta machine is made in Italy; we only need to prepare the dough with flour and egg and we can make all kinds of pasta at home with total ease. It's made of stainless steel and has smooth rollers to stretch the sheets and a cutting section for 150mm lasagna sheets, fettucine (6.5 mm) and tagliolini (2 mm). The opening of the smooth rollers allows access to 9 different positions (from 0.3 mm to 2.5 mm). It includes a clamp to secure the machine to the table.
Also, if you're passionate about this world you won't be able to resist the pasta drying rack, it will be super convenient. As well as the pasta cutting roller or the ravioli accessory for the machine. As you can see, you have everything within reach and it will be very easy for you when making your recipes.
So I couldn't resist and as soon as I saw it I thought, I'm overdue to try it. My first impression when I opened the box was fantastic: a heavy, sturdy machine and also very pretty. It's small, so it takes up little space — I mention that for those of you who have trouble storing gadgets. As soon as it arrived I started testing with doughs and without a doubt that's something I need to keep working on because you can make endless mixes, shapes and recipes with pasta.
Ingredients
- 300gr of flour
- 3 eggs
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 eggplant
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parmesan cheese (optional)
- Fresh parsley
Preparation
- The first thing we will do is prepare the dough for the pasta. For this we will put the sifted flour on our work surface, make a well in the center, add the eggs, beat them a little and start mixing carefully. At first with your fingers, then using your whole hand, always from the bottom up. If we see that the dough is too stiff we add a little water. Knead until you have a dough with body that detaches from your hand.
- We put our dough in a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap or with a cotton cloth, let it rest at least one hour.
- After resting we cut the dough into portions and roll the roller over them to be able to work them in the machine. We begin to pass our dough through the machine, choosing the thickest setting first and then moving to the thinnest. We will pass them through each setting about 4-5 times or until we see that our dough is perfect without wrinkles and with the right texture.
- Once we have done the same operation with our portions of dough, now it's time to pass them through the other roller to shape them. I chose fettuccine but you can opt for tagliolini as well. Once we have our fettuccine, we let them rest for a while on our pasta rack or dryer while we prepare the rest.
- Put water in a saucepan; keep in mind that for every 100 grams of pasta you need one liter of water for proper cooking. Add salt and, once it begins to boil, add our pasta and cook for 5 minutes (this time varies depending on the thickness of the pasta). Drain and set aside.
- Place our frying pan on the heat with a little olive oil; once hot add the eggplant cut into cubes and sauté for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes and sauté until lightly browned, then add the pasta, season with salt and pepper. Stir gently to mix everything well, sprinkle chopped fresh parsley on top and serve.
- You can grate Parmesan cheese on top before serving.
