Laura’s homemade pasta recipe; In my opinion, freshly made pasta is infinitely better than dried. The taste is so good that it’s fully worth the time invested in making it.

I’ve been making pasta for quite a few years and haven’t always used a pasta machine to roll out my pasta dough. I used a rolling pin instead. Although it does take a bit more time to get the pasta thinner it does do the same job so don’t worry if you haven’t got a pasta roller just do it by hand like an Italian Nona!

My girls love homemade ravioli. I fill my ravioli with either: mozzarella and basil or ricotta, lemon zest and chopped black olives.

Here’s the recipe:

→500g of strong flour

→3 large free-range eggs (organic if poss)

→8 egg yolks

✖︎ Step 1- Heap the flour on a surface and make a hole in it.

✖︎ Step 2 – Crack in all the eggs.

✖︎ Step 3 – Stir with a fork until you have a dough you can work with by hand.

✖︎ Step 4 – Knead well until you have a smooth, silky, and elastic dough you can work with.

✖︎ Step 5- Wrap the dough in cling film to rest a while in the fridge and become cold enough to work with.

✖︎ Step 6 – Cut your dough into quarters.

✖︎ Step 7 – Roll by hand or put your pasta machine on the thickest setting and start putting it through.

✖︎ Step 8 – Fold in half and repeat this process several times.

✖︎ Step 9 – Dust the length of pasta each time it goes through the machine and then slowly bring the setting thinner.

✖︎ Step 10 – Once the dough is thin like paper, such as 1 mm thick, it’s ready to be cut into strips or to make ravioli.

It does take practice making pasta but once you’ve cracked it you’ll be knocking up pasta like a pro!

Ravioli

✖︎ Stage 1 – layout your pasta sheets on a generously floured surface.

✖︎ Stage 2 – place a teaspoon of your filling at 2-inch intervals.

✖︎ Stage 3 – place another sheet gently over the top of your filling. Using a pastry brush lightly water the edges of the pasta and in between the fillings.

✖︎ Stage 4 – Place another sheet of pasta on top. Working from one end of the pasta to the other gently push the sheets together.

✖︎ Stage 5 – cut the ravioli with a cutter or knife.

✖︎ Stage 6 – cook straight away in salted water for 3-4 minutes or place in the fridge to cook later.