Cooking with Sophie: pasta from scratch

homemade pasta dishes

Quince & Cook’s Instagram has been our Sophie’s go-to place to share her wonderful recipes. She has shown us step by step how to make some super easy and tasty dishes and baked goods at home. From piping hot soup served with homemade bread, to snack-size puff pastry tarts.


I decided to dig out a cookbook from one of my all time favourite chefs, Antonio Carluccio. The cookbook in question features his top pasta dishes but I thought I’d challenge myself and follow his recipe for making pasta from scratch. 


I’ll be totally honest and say that up until then I had never attempted making my own pasta. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to make. 


Here is the full recipe that I followed and how I got on with my first attempt at homemade pasta. 


Ingredients 

3 eggs

300g of ‘00’ flour

Salt 


Method


Start by measuring out your flour and pouring it onto a clean surface. Make a little indent in the centre of the flour heap then pour your eggs in and add a dash of salt. 

flour and eggs

 

Combine the mixture with your hands and begin to knead as if it were bread dough. This will take about 10-15 minutes of strong knuckle action to make sure it’s nice and smooth. 

Set aside and leave to rest for a minimum of 30 minutes wrapped in cling film or a wax food wrap.

pasta dough

Now, it’s time to shape! You can choose whatever pasta shape you prefer or even make up your own with some funky shaped cutters. I chose to go with orecchiette as it seemed easiest for my first attempt at making pasta from scratch. Next time I’m going to try farfalle!

 

homemade pasta

 

Once you’ve shaped your pasta, leave to sit for another 30 minutes. Then, you’re ready to start cooking. Bring a big pot of salted water to the boil and add all of the pasta in one go. Pop the lid straight back on so that it goes back to the boil quickly.

After 20-30 seconds give it a stir and once back to the boil remove the lid and cook for 2-3 minutes. For my attempt it took closer to 6 minutes to cook.

homemade pasta dishes

That’s it! You’ve successfully made your own pasta from scratch. In total it took me around 2 hours prep time, so in the future I’ll probably make it in batches and freeze so that it’s ready to hand. 


Serve your pasta how you wish. I went for a tomato based sauce but you can use it in sauce or salad you desire.


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