How to make fresh pasta

Today we are going to talk about how to make fresh pasta , because if you have ever tried fresh pasta you will know how little it has to do with the traditional dried pasta we are used to, it surpasses it in every way.

But if this fresh pasta is homemade and freshly made , we go to another level of taste and pleasure. Fresh pasta made at home not only has a different consistency and more flavor in itself, but it absorbs the flavors of sauces and accompaniments much better.

Fresh pasta can be made at home with various utensils , which make our work easier to a greater or lesser extent:

1. By hand and stretching it with a rolling pin , as the genuine Italian nonnas did.
2. With a homemade pasta machine , a simple gadget that refines and fine-tunes the pasta dough and even cuts it into various shapes.
3. With a pasta maker accessory , such as the one that can be attached to the KitchenAid food processor.

The recipe for fresh pasta

Fresh pasta dough is a very simple dough, since in its simplest version it only has eggs and durum wheat flour (not just any flour will do), in a proportion of 220 g of flour for every 2 medium eggs (or what is the same, 110 g of flour for every egg you put in), as the Simili sisters show us in the book Pasta Fresca .

This book is a classic of Italian cooking and an essential guide to getting started on the preparation of genuine Italian pasta, which we highly recommend. The book is a delight to read because it seems like your Italian grandmother is explaining everything to you.

This dough, which is very coarse after mixing the ingredients, must be refined by flattening it with a rolling pin and folding it repeatedly, but this refining can be done very easily with a fresh pasta machine .

"Fresh pasta" book by the Simili sisters and Imperia machine (step by step instructions for fresh pasta with truffle butter )

The machine for making homemade pasta

A pasta machine, such as the Imperia machine , consists of two smooth rollers that not only refine the prepared dough, which must be passed through them repeatedly until it has the required fineness and thickness, but can also cut the dough into the shape of tagliatelle, spaghetti, etc.

In addition, the process of making pasta with this manual, crank-operated machine appeals to the little ones, who should always be involved in the kitchen.

The machine is attached to the work table with a vise and the dough is passed through it repeatedly until the desired thickness is obtained. It has an accessory to cut the pasta into spaghetti (2 mm) or fettucine (6.5 mm). You can see how it works in our recipe for fresh pasta with truffle butter .

If we are not going to consume all the pasta immediately, it is best to let it dry, for which there are some very cute pasta dryers from the same brand.

With the pasta maker you can also prepare simple sheets for making lasagna or even for use in ravioli, like those you can make with this simple ravioli mould set with included rolling pin . You can also make ravioli without a mould, cutting them with a ravioli cutter or cut the pasta sheets into tagliatelle with decorated edges with this cutter roller .

As you can see, the equipment needed to make fresh pasta is simple and manual, except for the pasta attachment on the KitchenAid. And you don't know how much fun it is to make your own fresh pasta. But above all, what's even more pleasing is that the result is magnificent. Here are two last suggestions for dishes with fresh pasta from the blog, some beetroot tagliatelle with gorgonzola sauce and some fettucine with eggplant and cherry tomatoes .