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.
00:03Today I'm going to be showing you how to make fresh pasta.
00:09Okay, so this is my recipe, how to make fresh pasta.
00:12So 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 350g 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.
00:28And I've got some fine semolina flour, so about 25g, 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.
00:42Burford Brown's a very good breed of hen for the eggs, or these ones which are Cornish eggs.
00:47It's very important that the quality of the egg is organic or has a nice colour.
00:53So we'll do four of these.
00:56Now 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 will 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.
01:08And that will be four yolks and two whole eggs.
01:11We might need to add another yolk, but let's just have a look at this now.
01:14Okay, so we'll turn the food processor on.
01:18So at this point I'm going to add one teaspoon of water.
01:37And 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.
01:48And we'll start to push it down onto the bench.
01:52Just going to fold over the dough and just make sure that all the dough is incorporated together.
01:57And 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.
02:05And the thing about pasta is the more elasticated it is, the better it is because you can roll it much thinner.
02:10And it tastes so much nicer when the pasta is really thin.
02:13When you make fresh pasta it's very important to have a damp tea towel because the damp tea towel will stop the pasta from drying.
02:18So 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.
02:25If 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.
02:31And then damp tea towel over the top of the pasta and 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.
02:41If you put it too thick it's just going to break the machine.
02:43And this process is called proving the pasta.
02:46And proving the pasta is a little bit like bread.
02:48It's basically getting all the gluten working so it becomes nice and tough and elasticated so you can really work the pasta.
02:55So the pasta's got a nice chewy al dente bite to it.
02:58And then we start putting the pasta through the machine.
03:00Go slowly, don't go too fast because you want to get that first roll through.
03:06And then fold over. So each time we're going to fold over.
03:09We're going to do this about five or six times so the pasta becomes really elasticated.
03:14So we'll keep going through.
03:17And I find actually using a manual machine's better than an electric one because you can kind of control it so much better.
03:24As you can see the pasta's really starting to come together and it'll become really, really smooth.
03:29Almost like silk because you're squeezing, extruding that pasta through the two rollers.
03:35And 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 but at home this is probably the best way to do it.
03:51So we keep rolling. You can see the pasta's becoming silkier and silkier.
03:55But you can see the colour of it's beautiful from those amazing eggs.
04:00But you can't really over prove the pasta. Anything 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.
04:14And then what we're going to do, we're going to start putting it through the machine.
04:17So notch by notch. One notch down.
04:19You'll hear a kind of click.
04:21And then put the pasta dough through the finer setting on the wheels.
04:27And then do it two times.
04:29Another notch.
04:31Down it goes.
04:32Holding the pasta, stretching it so it doesn't get stuck.
04:35That pasta's getting thinner and thinner.
04:37And 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.
04:46Anything longer becomes unmanageable.
04:49So we'll just cut this into the right size.
04:51But that's kind of what you want.
04:52Beautiful, silky, golden yellow pasta.
04:56So we'll just cut this into three.
04:59One, two, three.
05:03And then put a little bit of semolina flour 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, we can now make whichever pasta we want to do.
05:20So we can make tagliarini, we can make tagliatelle, we can make pappardelle,
05:23we can make ravioli or we can make cappelletti.
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.
05:42And if it's too thin, it just cooks too quickly.
05:44So you want to have that sort of nice little bite to it.
05:46The al dente bite, which is to the tooth.
05:48It'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.
06:01So we take the handle out of the pasta rollers and put it into the cutter.
06:05This is an attachment 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.
06:20And that just goes somewhere flat and dry.
06:22Don't be tempted to curl it to little curls like you get in the supermarkets.
06:26It's better to keep it flat because if it's slightly damp,
06:29what will happen is the pasta will stick together
06:31and you'll end up with a blob of pasta, which is not very nice.
06:34Then we'll do the tagliarini.
06:36So just to the other rollers.
06:39Put it through, slowly starting off.
06:42Put the pasta through the cutters.
06:45And then you get a beautiful tagliarini.
06:47This is not spaghetti.
06:48It's tagliarini.
06:49There's a very big difference.
06:50Spaghetti is always using dried durum wheat flour.
06:53And it's always a dry product.
06:55This is fresh pasta.
06:56And this one is called tagliarini.
06:57And this 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,
07:08salted pasta water.
07:09And then cook the pasta for about two minutes.
07:11Not too long because tagliarini is very, very fine.
07:14So it cooks very, very quickly.
07:16And then using a pair of tongs,
07:17take the pasta out of the water and add it to the sauce.
07:21And move the pasta in the pan together so it emulsifies.
07:28OK, so make sure that you stir the pasta a lot and give it a little toss.
07:32Then lift up the pasta.
07:34And it should all be really lovely and juicy.
07:36Not too wet, but juicy.
07:39And that butter and all that pasta water has emulsified.
07:44So you get this really beautiful, thick-coated pasta.
07:49And then we just finish this with some Parmesan cheese.
07:56Just fine-grating the Parmesan cheese.
07:59And a little bit more black pepper.
08:04And if you're lucky to have a white truffle, or any kind of truffle,
08:07you can grate that on top.
08:14And that's it.
08:15That's how you make a truffle pasta.