I set out today to endeavour an egg pasta without the machine. I used about 600g of flour and mixed in 4 eggs and 2 egg yolks, a dash of olive oil and a pinch of salt to begin the process of making the dough.
After much kneading, I begin adding lashes of water every now and then as there really was too much egg in this recipe and the dough was not moist enough.
My grandmother used to make us noodles every Saturday when we were kids, so I channelled a lot of my memories of her into making this dish. After a long time of kneading and not seeing the silkiness that the dough should have started developing, I enlisted the help of my brother who gave it a good few hard kneads with his muscles to finish off the process.
After resting the dough for about 30 minutes,
we took turns rolling out small pieces of dough on a floured surface to make a flat piece. It took a few goes, but I found the process much easier if we cut off slices of the dough and begin rolling them out lengthways. Once you get it quite thin, flour both sides and fold it a little like an accordion and with a dry sharp knife you can begin to cut the noodles out in the width you want the noodles to look like.
We ended up making something like a fettucine:
And then turned it into this finished dish:
It was a really good bonding session with my brother. I kind of feel what Helen and Steve on the current My Kitchen Rules must feel like when they cook together. We shared so many memories of the wonderful meals our grandmother used to make whilst we made the pasta together. It was a rare ocassion where we weren't bickering or getting on each other's nerves.
I loved the pasta. It was certainly very al dente. Much like the ones that I remember from Italy. It is no wonder the Italian girl I met at surf camp said to me she didn't like the pasta in Australia. She said they all tasted like they were cooked in cold water. I realise now that if you eat hand made pasta like we did, there is a big difference in texture from the store bought variety.
Serve the dish straight from the stove on a rainy afternoon such as this one, and then wash it down with my new favourite drink, mineral water with a dash of creme de cassis for flavour. Looks pretty and makes me feel like I am having a cocktail.
