· James Torr · Personal  · 1 min read

Fresh pasta making afternoon yesterday, these were busiate shapes. Sauce was puttanesca, it came out very rich and slightly over seasoned. The dough was the southern Italian style: 100g flour, 50g water per person. I made this in my food processor but it's a funny dough, starting off very crumbly, like sand, then coming together after a bit of a rest and some encouragement. I'd be tempted to mix for a few minutes in the processor then hand knead next time.

Fresh pasta making afternoon yesterday, these were busiate shapes.

Fresh pasta making afternoon yesterday, these were busiate shapes. Sauce was puttanesca, it came out very rich and slightly over seasoned.

The dough was the southern Italian style: 100g flour, 50g water per person. I made this in my food processor but it’s a funny dough, starting off very crumbly, like sand, then coming together after a bit of a rest and some encouragement. I’d be tempted to mix for a few minutes in the processor then hand knead next time. As usual, knead till nice and smooth.

The shape is fairly simple, but does take a while to get the knack. You have to roll into a cylinder about 3-4mm wide. Cut into 50mm lengths, then angle them at 45 degrees while you roll over them with a short skewer. This is not a thing to do in a rush though!

Boil in sea salted water for 4 minutes, then mix in with the sauce and a few tbs of the cooking water.

Photo 1Photo 2Photo 3
Share:
Back to Blog

Related Posts

View All Posts »
I bore the freezing cold and made myself a pizza.

I bore the freezing cold and made myself a pizza.

I bore the freezing cold and made myself a pizza. Turned out rather well! Probably didn't need so much on top, but apart from that, good stuff. Homemade mozzarella and feta-like cheeses, as well as some nice salami my buddy Evan made in Italy. Happy Monday folks!

My pizza oven stone got broken by my cat making a particularly adventurous leap onto the greenhouse shelf.

My pizza oven stone got broken by my cat making a particularly adventurous leap onto the greenhouse shelf.

My pizza oven stone got broken by my cat making a particularly adventurous leap onto the greenhouse shelf. She got a nice hour or two in the sun, my pizza oven hasn't been used since. I bought some Caputo flour recently and after a couple of failed BBQ pizza attempts, I went back to the method of pizza I used when I got started on the journey. The method is simply: preheat a griddle pan over the gas for 5 minutes or so, when it's ready, turn an oven grill on too. Stretch the pizza dough (it doesn't have to be fully), and drop it on the pan.

Thanks to Aaron for making this mattarello for me.

Thanks to Aaron for making this mattarello for me.

Thanks to Aaron for making this mattarello for me. Had a piece of oak lying around for years that wasn't a proper cylinder, finally got it running for some hand rolled pasta action today. Hopefully a bit more practice to get the timing down a bit, took about 20 minutes to get this sheet into shape. 3 eggs + 300g of caputo rosso. Half of the batch for some pappardelle, and the other half for some farfallone.

Full volume water pasta method.

Full volume water pasta method.

Full volume water pasta method. Seen a few one pot pasta dishes around, I personally don't think they give you that much control over the sauce, so I do them separately. Italians may not appreciate this, as the traditional method is 1 litre of water for 100g of pasta (10:1). I used to use about 5:1, lately I've been playing with about 3:1. It works, is much more energy efficient, and helps make starchy water - great for sauces.