Ingredients
Method
Mix and ferment
- Mix the starter and eggs together with a wooden spoon, and then start adding flour, bit by bit.
- Keep on adding flour with the spoon until it is too hard to mix, then start mixing in more flour with your hands.
- When the dough is quite stiff, but still ever-so-slightly sticky, leave it to ferment overnight at a cool-ish room temperature.
Shape
- For fettuccini, lasagne, ribbons, and other flat pasta: Using plenty of flour, take pieces of dough and roll each one out as thin as it will go. Hold it up to the light and you should be able to see light through it. Cut it into the pasta shapes of your choice.
For orecchiette:
Get pieces of dough and form them into sausages around 1⁄2” (1cm) thick. Cut into pieces around 1⁄4” (1⁄2 cm) wide, then use your thumb to make an indent in each piece.
Rest, then Cook
- Allow your pasta to rest in a single layer on floured tea towels for at least ten minutes before cooking. This helps the outsides of it to dry out so that they won’t stick together during cooking.
- Get your pasta sauce and the table ready - this pasta cooks really quickly.
- Bring a large pot of salty water to a rolling boil. Add the pasta and stir it through. Put the lid back on and leave it to return to the boil. Once the water has come back to a light boil, remove the lid and boil it for three minutes, then drain and serve.