RECIPE

• Pile the flour and semolina into a large bowl or onto a clean work surface and make a well in the middle.
• Separate the eggs and add the yolks to the well.
• Put the egg whites aside for tasty cooking another day (see tip).
• Use a fork to whip up the eggs until smooth.
• Gradually bring a little flour in from the outside to form a paste.
• Mix in 4 tablespoons of water.
• When it becomes too hard to mix, get your clean, floured hands in there and bring it together into a ball of dough.
• Knead on a flour-dusted surface for around 5 minutes or until firm, smooth, and elastic (eggs can vary in size, and flour can vary in humidity; this dough shouldn’t be too wet or dry, but tweak with a touch more water or flour if you need to – use your common sense).
• Wrap in a cloth or a scrunched-up piece of damp greaseproof paper.
• Leave to relax for 30 minutes in the fridge.
• On a large, flat surface, use the palm of your hand to flatten the dough, then use a rolling pin to roll out the pasta to about 2mm thick for shapes like linguine, tagliatelle and lasagne (if you want to use a pasta machine, see tip).
• For anything turned into a filled pasta, such as ravioli and tortellini, go as thin as 1 millimeter because when it’s folded around a filling, it will double up to 2 millimeter.
• Using a pasta machine: Attach a pasta machine firmly to a nice, clean table.
• Divide your pasta dough into four pieces, covering everything with a damp, clean tea towel to stop drying out as you go.
• One at a time, flatten each piece of dough by hand and run it through the thickest setting.
• Take the rollers down two settings and run the dough through again to make it thinner.
• Fold it in half and run it back through the thickest setting again.
• Jamie’s tip: He likes to repeat this a few times because it makes the dough super-smooth and adequately fills the pasta machine.
• Start rolling the sheet down through each setting, dusting lightly with flour.
• Turn the crank with one hand while the other maintains a little tension to avoid kinks, folds, or ripples.
• Take it right down to the desired thickness, which is about 2 millimeters for shapes like angel hair (cut 1 to 2 millimeters wide), tagliolini (cut just less than ½ centimeters wide), tagliatelle (cut just less than 1 centimeter wide), pappardelle (cut 2 centimeters wide) and lasagna.
• For anything turned into a filled pasta, such as ravioli and tortellini, go as thin as 1 millimeter because it will double up to 2 millimeters when folded around a filling.
• Save your egg whites: Put the egg whites into a sandwich bag and pop into the freezer for making meringues another day. They’ll keep happily for up to 3 months.
• Older egg whites are better for making meringues.