Everyone has their culinary bugbear – some can’t bake cakes, others struggle with pastry, and many are put off by tempering chocolate. For us, it’s always been homemade pasta. That’s not to say we haven’t thrown time and money at trying to get it right, but each attempt has turned out stodgy, floury and brittle.
So it was with some trepidation that we decided to try a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Plenty. But oh, we were so delighted with the results! The pasta was mixed in minutes in our large food processor, and passed easily through the rollers and cutters without the usual shredding and crumbling.
We began with four eggs from our girls, and gifts from friends – a small box of saffron from James and a knob of turmeric that Diana grew in her backyard. The recipe specifies ground turmeric, but Di’s fresh version was too good to pass up.
The finished dough was a glorious golden yellow…
- 440g pasta flour or 00 flour
- 4 large free range eggs
- 4 tablespoons (80ml) boiling water
- 4 tablespoons (80ml) extra virgin olive oil
- 2 scant teaspoons saffron threads
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric (we used grated fresh)
1. In a medium sized bowl, soak the saffron threads in the boiling water for ten minutes, then stir in the turmeric and olive oil. Add the eggs and beat well to combine.
2. Place the flour in the large bowl of a heavy duty food processor and, with the motor running, gradually pour the egg and oil mixture through the chute. Pulse the food processor until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed and start to come together.
3. Tip the dough and any loose flour onto a clean bench and knead briefly until smooth. Wrap snuggly in a plastic bag, and then rest the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or up to one day.
4. Cut the rested dough into four pieces, keeping three covered as you work the first one. Shape the small ball into a long rectangle, then pass it through the rollers of a pasta machine, starting with the thickest setting. Pass the sheet through, fold it, and pass it through again – repeating this process a few times to give the dough strength.
5. Once the pasta is elastic and doesn’t tear or crumble through the rollers, gradually reduce the settings until it reaches the desired thickness. Flour the thin sheet of pasta well, then either cut it into strips with a knife, or pass it through the cutting blades of the pasta machine. Hang the noodles up while you process the remaining dough – we used a laundry rack, but I think tradition dictates a wooden dowel supported between two kitchen chairs!
This pasta cooks in mere minutes in salted boiling water, and we served it with slivered almonds, mint, parsley and the spiced butter and shallot sauce which accompanied the recipe in the cookbook. Truly superb vegetarian fare!
PS. We’ve repeated this recipe without the turmeric and saffron and found it works perfectly well for “everyday” egg pasta. The quantities given above make approximately 750g of pasta dough.
Click here for a printable version of this recipe
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I don’t have a pasta machine, but I’ve made noodles by hand and I agree- they are so much better than the dried up ones you buy at a store!
That looks so very good- I love the flavor of saffron and fresh turmeric? Oh my, that sounds and looks very yummy!
“some can’t bake cakes, others struggle with pastry, and many are put off by tempering chocolate”
I fall in all three categories :D And well done for conquering pasta!
Hurray for conquering the pasta bugbear! That pasta looks silky and delicious, your girls must have given it the added magical touch.
I think this means I really need to sort that tempering bugbear of mine out…
Looks delicious!
Wow, this is great!..I will try one of these days to make this homemade pasta.
Great job!
Sandra
Looks so beautiful, did the saffron flavour come through well or did the tumeric overpower it?
Hooray!! You did it! Wow, I am in awe of that colour – just gorgeous!! What a wonderful way to use up your ‘gifts’ from the ‘girls’ :)
Thank you all!
Chef, yes actually, the saffron was noticeable, but not in an overpowering way. I think the turmeric was milder because it was fresh?
Chris, it’s funny – before I had chickens, I used to think that if I had homelaid eggs, I’d be happy to do things like make angel’s food cake which uses 16 eggwhites. Now that it’s actually happened, I find myself looking on the eggs like they’re precious, and I’m not willing to waste them or gamble them on something I think might not work! :)
Hi Celia, I think I must be reading your mind! I have a post today about growing turmeric. I suggested pasta as a recipe that could use it, but I was thinking of pasta sauce, not the pasta itself. Going to try this one.
Congratulation Celia, its so exciting when you break through with a recipe. This does look like a good easy recipe too. Love the rich colours & flavours of tumeric, I would love this dish.
Celia, I just love the way you casually refer to your neighbours fresh turmeric – all I can say is wow! Love the wonderful colour and glad it worked out for you. I’ve still only made one recipe from Plenty, but it’s a lovely book.
Linda, that’s wonderful, I’ve just been on Pete’s case to try and grow some! Thank you…
Anna, thanks, we’ve been so frustrated for so long, it’s nice to finally be able to have a recipe that works!
Choc, Di’s not a neighbour but she is a very dear friend – this was her first attempt to grow turmeric, so we’re actually very excited – I should have been more effusive (I certainly felt it!). It was very beautiful!
I love homemade pasta! Every time we make it I wonder why we don’t do it all the time.
I’ll have to compare your recipe against my Greens Cookbook one. You can also add a handful of fresh herbs if you want to be fancy.
It also helps to have a kid around to crank the machine as you roll the dough.
Fresh tumeric! I want to try that. We tried to grow fresh ginger but it was too woody. We do have a huge bunch of bananas coming in on one of our banana trees. I’ll post photos.
Mazza. :-)
Maz, it really is a two-person job, at least for us! One to turn the handle, the other to manoeuvre the long pasta sheet! Looking forward to the photos.. :)
I haven’t made fresh pasta for a while. I even made a pasta making table once as I didn’t want to try to clamp the roller/cutter onto a stone bench top. But you know what happens to flat surfaces…
I’ll give it a go.
Wow, Lee, a dedicated pasta making table!! That’s commitment.. :)
Homemade pasta often seems to turn out too thick or too papery thin (or not at all!!). I am planning to borrow my Mum’s pasta machine before I invest in one so I can see if I ‘get the bug’. The colour of the dough is so vibrant – like sunshine! And the end result looks very professional.
Sarah, all our pasta before this has been rubbish. Truly, it was so bad that I’d given up, and was buying pasta from Peppe’s Pasta. Then Brydie blogged about making pasta, then Christine mentioned it, and our chickens kept laying eggs, and I felt obliged to try again. So glad we did! :)
We can’t seem to make good pasta from just flour and eggs like all the recipes books say – it just ends up dry and crumbly. And when I looked at the ingredients in the pasta we were buying, I noticed that it included oil and water as well!
Thanks for the tip re oil and water. My sister makes her own as well (I even put her recipe on my blog – she just uses eggs and flour) but I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll be trying the recipe you posted – it sounds like it might be more forgiving?
By the way can you tell me how you get photos into your snippets section?
Sarah, draft your snippet in a new post box, and upload your images into there – save them as thumbnail size. Once the post looks the way you’d like it to, switch from “Visual” to “Html” (button on the top right of the new post box). Then copy and paste the text into the widget text box. Email me if that doesn’t make sense, and I’ll try to explain it better. :)
i am going to try these suggestions with my homemade pasta recipe. saffron is so aromatic and color so enticing! thanks.
I’ve heard nothing but fine reports of your book, Celia.
I’m making pasta in the next couple of days and will follow your show.
o)
Aleida, hope you enjoy it. Look forward to reading how you make your pasta..
Gill, “Plenty” is a fabulous book – full of interesting vegetarian recipes. You’d have loved the colour of the dough.. :)
Before I went GF, I also loved to make fresh egg pasta with different flavour combiantions!! this saffron & turmeric pasta is a special one & what an unusual combo of real flavours!!
The endresult looks so good & tasty though!
oh fantastic – I just bought some Saffron during a recent visit to Chef’s Warehouse and want to try something with it. I have a pasta attachment to the kitchenaid and it is really, really forgiving of pasta problems!
thanks for the recipe.
i ordered a pasta roller this week, and ever since i keep thinking what the first pasta i make in it should be. when i was a kid my grandma made everything by hand, angel hair included. first they went on the dowel rested on chairs, and then we rolled them into nests and laid them on crisp kitchen towels to dry for later use. i know for sure she used oil, and sometimes she would infuse it with garlic or red pepper flakes, but i don’t remember any water in there. one of my fondest memories is fresh pasta in sweet ground walnuts. it was lunch and desert rolled into one.
that saffron is beautiful, it must be very good quality judging by the thickness on those threads. pasta looks good and luscious, and by the way, i’m having a really hard time believing something in the kitchen eluded you!
Sophie, thank you!
Anne, we use a manual roller, but I eye off those KitchenAids every time I’m at Chefs! :)
Dana, you’re a sweetheart, and I can’t wait to see what you’re going to come up with once you get your hands on a pasta roller! There are so many things I can’t do in the kitchen – latest one I’ve just discovered is that I am absolutely rubbish at filleting fish. Sigh..add that to the list of things to work on.. :)
SO now I’ll have to get ‘Plenty’ and the other Ottolenghi cookbook! Superb job….as pasta too is my bugbear :-) as well as bread! It looks really gorgeous and the accompaniments sound truly delicious
Oz, they’re both fabulous books…can’t recommend them highly enough!
Oh, agreed, fresh homemade pasta is far better than the store. Glad this recipe was a winner for you. Have heard excellent things about the cookbook, Plenty. Now I’m even more enticed :)
hehe I was going to swap you some pasta skills for some of your sourdough bread skills but it looks like you don’t need them! :P
Emma, it’s a fabulous book! Unless you’re a carnivorous anti-vegetarian.. ;-)
L, you’re kind as always, but we can use all the help we can get! :)
Made this yesterday (well a version inspired by this). Homemade pasta is so delicious. How could we eat that dried up stuff so often when this is so good!?
Will try your version next time (my dough was quite wet)
Excited to use my mum’s pasta machine that she bought many many years ago (it would be at least 40 years old and its still like new)
Your website is really inspiring me at the moment. Thanks so much.