fresh charcoal pasta

SERVES 6

While fresh pasta may be a little more laborious than most of my recipes, the final product is worth every second. The flavour and texture is quite different from the dried varieties, making the meal seem more sumptuous somehow. The charcoal gives the pasta a striking black colour, but it is completely optional and may be left out. This is one of my favourite Saturday afternoon recipes, and it really helps to have two people on board – luckily my sister Loryn finds the act of rolling the pasta just as meditative as I do.

600g plain flour, plus extra for rolling

6 eggs

2 teaspoons fine salt

2 teaspoons food-grade charcoal (optional; see note)

1   Place all ingredients in TC bowl, knead for 2 minutes, dough function.

2   Tip out crumbly mixture onto bench and press into a disc. Wrap in cling film and rest for 20 minutes. If dough stays crumbly and doesn’t come together, place back in TC bowl, add 2 teaspoons water and continue to knead for 30 seconds, dough function.

3   Cut dough into 8 equal pieces. Flatten each piece and flour both sides. Set pasta machine to the widest setting and feed through 1 piece of dough. Fold in half and repeat. Continue feeding dough through the widest setting (folding in half each time) until dough becomes silky and is uniform in shape (approx. 6 times).

4   Once silky, turn the machine to one setting narrower and feed dough through once. Turn one setting narrower again and repeat until the dough is desired thickness. Flour both sides of dough if it starts sticking to the machine or dragging. Repeat with remaining dough.

5   Run pasta through the fettuccine cutter, or leave as is and use for lasagne, ravioli, tortellini or cannelloni.

When ready to serve, cook pasta in salted boiling water until al dente. It will only take a couple of minutes.

NOTE: While it is possible to make fresh pasta using a rolling pin rather than a pasta machine, I never find this produces very good results and becomes more like hard labour than meditation.

Food-grade charcoal is available from good health food shops.