Making pasta

I am very aware of how easy it is to open up a packet of dry pasta or jet down to the shops and buy ready-made pasta. But when you need a bit of stress relief or even upper body exercise, there is little to replace the act of making your own pasta. And then there's the added benefit of making it the way you like with your own ingredients. Besides which, it is pathetically simple to make.
The simple rule of thumb is one normal portion of finished pasta is achieved by combining 100g of Tipo 00 cake flour to one large egg. So I used 400g of flour with 4 eggs for my family.
Pour the flour onto your work surface, make a well in the middle and crack the eggs into it. With a fork, beat the eggs. Now for the fun part: place the tips of your five fingers (one hand only) in the egg mixture and in a circular motion slowly start eroding the flour walls of the well. Very quickly you'll have a gooey mixture ... keep going and incorporate all the flour. Now for the stress relief. Start beating and pulling and knocking that mixture into a smooth-feeling ball (about five minutes). You'll feel the texture change the more you go at it.
Place this ball on a plate and cover with plastic film in the fridge for about half an hour.
Divide the ball into three pieces and, using a rolling pin, roll out as thin as you can get, always dusting with flour. Tip: to keep the flattened dough from getting away from you while you roll, have a piece hang over the edge of the work surface and lightly lean against it. Once the dough is very thin (and quite big), roll the edges up loosely toward the center so that you have two rolls. Now use a sharp knife and cut your pasta as thick or thin as you wish. When you are done, place the knife underneath and lift up and the pasta will drape down on either side of the blade. Drop onto the work surface and dust with flour. Repeat for all the balls.
This past is now ready to be cooked (be careful, fresh pasta cooks much quicker than dried pasta) or simply place in a plastic bag and freeze until needed.
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