Ever wondered how to make pasta? Celebrity chef Theo Randall shows how to make this Italian classic in a few easy steps, here.
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00:00Hello, my name is Theo Randall and I'm from Theo Randall at the Intercontinental.
00:02Today I'm going to be showing you how to make fresh pasta.
00:09Okay, so this is my recipe how to make fresh pasta.
00:11So I'm going to use whole eggs and egg yolks.
00:14It's a very rich pasta dough.
00:16So first of all, we take 350 grams of fine Tipo 00 flour.
00:21It's the only pasta flour you can use.
00:23You cannot use plain flour.
00:25So you put the flour in the food processor.
00:27Then I've got some fine semolina flour.
00:29So about 25 grams, just to give a bit of texture and colour.
00:33And then we're going to do the eggs.
00:36So we're going to do two whole eggs.
00:39And I try and use a very enriched egg yolk.
00:41Burford Brown is a very good breed of hen for the eggs.
00:45Or these ones which are Cornish eggs.
00:47It's very important that the quality of the egg is organic or it's of a nice colour.
00:53So we'll do four of these.
00:55Now there's lots of recipes where you add salt and olive oil.
00:58Do not add salt or olive oil to pasta dough because it'll make it go black.
01:01So just a little bit of water if you need anything.
01:05Okay, so we'll just do one more yolk.
01:07And that'll be four yolks and two whole eggs.
01:10And we might need to add another yolk, but let's just have a look at this now.
01:13Okay, so we'll turn the food processor on.
01:25So at this point I'm going to add one teaspoon of water.
01:28And then we'll just empty the pasta dough into the bowl.
01:41And it should have this Play-Doh sort of texture, so plasticine.
01:45And then we'll just work that in.
01:47And we'll start to push it down onto the bench.
01:51I'm just going to fold over the dough and just make sure that all the dough is incorporated together.
01:56And then add a little bit of semolina flour so it doesn't stick.
02:01Start kneading the dough just to get a nice smooth paste.
02:04And the thing about pasta is that the more elasticated it is, the better it is.
02:08Because then you can roll it much thinner and it tastes so much nicer when the pasta is really thin.
02:12So when you make fresh pasta, it's very important to have a damp tea towel.
02:15Because the damp tea towel will stop the pasta from drying.
02:17So you can pop it on the side and not have to keep going backwards and forwards to the fridge.
02:21So we're just going to cut this piece of pasta dough in half to make it more manageable.
02:24If you put too much pasta dough through the machine, it's just going to break your machine.
02:28So keep it quite small, the quantity, and then damp tea towel over the top of the pasta.
02:33And then just leave that on one side.
02:35And then we'll just start putting this through the machine.
02:37Now press it nice and thin so it goes through the two rollers.
02:40If you put it too thick, it's just going to break the machine.
02:43And this process is called proving the pasta.
02:45And proving the pasta is a little bit like bread.
02:47It's basically getting all the gluten working so it becomes nice and tough and elasticated.
02:53So you can really work the pasta so the pasta's got a nice chewy al dente bite to it.
02:57And then we start putting the pasta through the machine.
02:59Go slowly, don't go too fast because you want to get that first roll through.
03:05And then fold over.
03:06So each time we're going to fold over.
03:08You need to do this about five or six times so the pasta becomes really elastic.
03:13So we'll keep going through.
03:17And I find actually using a manual machine is better than an electric one because you can
03:22kind of control it so much better.
03:23And as you can see, the pasta's really starting to come together.
03:26And it'll become really, really smooth, almost like silk.
03:30Because you're squeezing, you're extruding that pasta through the two rollers.
03:34And that's just making it really, really stretchy.
03:37Now if you go to Bologna, they always roll the pasta by hand.
03:40And everything's done with a wooden rolling pin.
03:43And using a pasta machine is unheard of.
03:45But at home, this is probably the best way to do it.
03:51So we keep rolling.
03:52You can see the pasta's becoming silkier and silkier.
03:55But you can see the colour of it.
03:57It's beautiful from those amazing eggs.
04:00But you can't really over-prove the pasta.
04:02Anything that'll happen is it'll become too dry.
04:04So five or six times should be enough.
04:07And then that's the sort of consistency you want.
04:09A very silky pasta dough that's quite elasticated.
04:15And then what we're going to do, we're going to start putting it through the machine.
04:17So notch by notch.
04:18One notch down, you'll hear a kind of click.
04:20And then put the pasta dough through the finer setting on the wheels.
04:27And then do it two times.
04:29Another notch down it goes.
04:32Holding the pasta, stretching it so it doesn't get stuck.
04:34That pasta's getting thinner and thinner.
04:36And also it's becoming really, really silky.
04:39You can be quite rough with it because you've made it very, very tough.
04:42You've made it very elasticated rather.
04:44Now we're getting a bit too long now.
04:45So anything longer, it becomes unmanageable.
04:48So we'll just cut this into the right size.
04:50But that's kind of what you want.
04:51Beautiful, silky, golden, yellow pasta.
04:56So we'll just cut this into three.
04:59One, two, three.
05:02And then put a little bit of semolina flour on in between each sheet of pasta,
05:06just so it doesn't stick.
05:08And then we're going to pop the tea towel, our damp tea towel, on top
05:13until we're ready to make our next stage.
05:16So now we've rolled out the pasta,
05:17we can now make whichever pasta we want to do.
05:20So we can make tagliarini, we can make tagliatelle, we can make pappadelli,
05:23we can make ravioli or we can make cappaletti.
05:25Any one you want.
05:26But let's start off with the tagliatelle.
05:28So we get the pasta dough.
05:30Now I always say if you can kind of see your hand through the pasta dough,
05:35just the sort of silhouette of it, it's the right thickness.
05:37If it's too thick, it's not very nice when you eat it.
05:40It's not very digestible.
05:41And if it's too thin, it just cooks too quickly.
05:43So you want to have that sort of nice little bite to it.
05:45The al dente bite, which is to the tooth.
05:47It's got texture.
05:49So we'll cut the pasta to the length we want.
05:51So this is going to be the length of the tagliatelle.
05:53And you can just cut this all up beforehand.
05:55What you do, when it's just not too dry, but it's just dried a little bit,
05:59you then put it through the machine.
06:00So we take the handle out of the pasta rollers and put it into the cutter.
06:05This is an attachment that you get with all pasta machines.
06:08And this one is tagliatelle.
06:09Another one is tagliarini.
06:10So we'll do both.
06:11And we put the pasta through.
06:13And then we start rolling clockwise to pull the pasta through.
06:17And then you have your tagliatelle.
06:19And that just goes somewhere flat and dry.
06:22Don't be tempted to curl it to lovely little curls like you get in the supermarkets.
06:26It's better to keep it flat because if it's slightly damp,
06:29what'll happen is the pasta will stick together.
06:31And you'll end up with a blob of pasta, which is not very nice.
06:35Then we'll do the tagliarini.
06:36So just to the other rollers, put it through, slowly starting off,
06:42put the pasta through the cutters.
06:45And then you get beautiful tagliarini.
06:47This is not spaghetti, it's tagliarini.
06:48There's a very big difference.
06:50Spaghetti is always using dried durum wheat flour.
06:53And it's always a dry product.
06:54This is fresh pasta.
06:56And this one is called tagliarini.
06:57This is probably the most famous Piemonte,
07:00where they serve it with butter and white truffles, which is amazing.
07:04So the best way to cook tagliarini is by adding tagliarini to the pasta water,
07:07salted pasta water, and then cook the pasta for about two minutes.
07:11Not two months long because tagliarini is very, very fine.
07:13So it cooks very, very quickly.
07:15And then using a pair of tongs, take the pasta out of the water and add it to the sauce.
07:21And move the pasta and the pan together so it emulsifies.
07:27Okay, so make sure that you stir the pasta a lot and give a little toss.
07:32And then lift up the pasta.
07:34And it should be really lovely and juicy.
07:36Not too wet, but juicy.
07:38And that butter and all that pasta water has emulsified.
07:44So you get this really beautiful thick coated pasta.
07:48And then we just finish this with some Parmesan cheese.
07:56Just fine grating of Parmesan cheese and a little bit more black pepper.
08:02And if you're lucky to have a white truffle or any kind of truffle, you can grate that on top.