Home-made Fresh Vegan Pasta

Vegan

The thought of making pasta from scratch might fill even the most enthusiastic cook with dread...but fear not. It's actually really easy and quicker than you'd think, especially if you have a pasta roller. Even if you just give it a try for a special occasion, it's worth it, as it tastes amazing and so much better than shop-brought dried pasta.

See how to do this with our picture slide-show. Click on the pictures to read a description.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Serves:

Time:

30-40 mins

No nuts

No sesame

No soya

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour or Italian '00' pasta flour
1 cup semolina flour
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup warm water

Method:

1. Sieve together both types of flour in a large mixing bowl and add in the salt. Mix in well.

2. Make a well in the centre, then begin gradually adding in the water, stirring gently with a wooden spoon, encouraging bits of flour to enter the mix, so a paste begins to form.

3. Keep going until all the water has been added and bring in the remaining flour from the edges to form a ball of dough. Give it a brief kneed with your hands.

4. Form it into a circle, and then cut into 4 pieces. Get your pasta roller ready next to it, if you are using one. If not, flour your work surface lightly.

5. Take one of the quarters of pasta dough and flatten it out by hand and dust with flour.

6. For pasta rollers: Set the thickness dial on its broadest setting (usually 1) and pass the first piece of dough through about 4 times. Fold it over each time in-between feeding it through the rollers again. If rolling by hand go to step 10.

7. Next turn the dial down one setting, and feed it through the roller again, gently guiding it out the other side.

8. Turn the dial down again and repeat the process. You want your pasta sheet to be of a medium thickness.

9. Repeat the steps above for all four pieces of dough, laying the sheets out to dry as you go.

10. If rolling by hand, follow a similar process, rolling each piece of dough out and folding it over a few times as you go, then rolling again. You are aiming to create 4 long sheets of pasta, of an even medium thickness.

11. When you have four sheets of pasta, dust them lightly with flour.

12. Cutting into ribbons for tagliatelle: to do this by hand, cut strips about 4mm thick using a sharp knife. If using a pasta roller tagiatelle attachment, feed the strips through the teeth, supporting the ribbons as they appear from the other end.

13. Hang your completed ribbons up as you go, using a pasta drying stand, or a large saucepan (as pictured).

14. Once all your sheets have been cut into ribbons, bring a large saucepan of lightly salted and oiled water to the boil.

15. Gather together all your ribbons in your hands and drop them into the boiling water at the same time, cooking for just a couple of minutes before draining and serving immediately, with vegan marg stirred though, salt and pepper. For a top-class finish, make some home-made pasta.