Once upon a time the fresh pasta…

Fresh pasta has been handmade by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers. It is a tradition that many people are now rediscovering.
Our Personal Chef Paola Ciambruschini will bring you step by step to enjoy one of our cooking classes.

Before putting your hands in the pasta…

Wear an apron, an hat chef and place on the table all the tools you’re going to use:

• pastry or wooden table
• fork
• tarot, cut wheels and ravioli cutters
• Rolling pin
• weight scale
• bowls to weigh the ingredients

Now we are ready to introduce you to our fresh pasta Cooking Class.

Fresh pasta

Ingredients

To make fresh pasta we need two ingredients only: flour and eggs. Even if it looks simple, it requires a careful choice.

• The flour: you will find out that not all kinds of flour are the same. Some are suitable for fresh pasta and others are not. Moreover, you can blend different types of flour, according to your taste or to the result you want to get.
• The eggs, here is a tip for you: to make some perfect fresh pasta, the eggs have to be weighed. Each egg has a different weight. The colour of the yolk varies depending on the type of breeding and feeding of the hens and it affects the colour of the pasta.

Hands in the pasta

Making pasta is a story made of shape, time, perseverance and manual skills. It is a break in your daily grind.
We like to pour flour on the wooden board and create a well with a hole in the middle. We like to crack the eggs and hear the sound of the eggshell when it breaks.
Pasta is made of colours: white of the flour, yellow of the eggs.

The dough

Slowly we mix the flour with the eggs using a fork, from the edges towards the centre. Then we start kneading by hand. The dough will slowly become solid and elastic.
Then there is the “rest time”.

Sauces and fillings

While the dough rests at room temperature, wrapped in a film, we clean the work board and prepare the sauces to season the pasta.
For example, we can make the filling for ravioli, made of spinach and ricotta cheese.
A good amatriciana sauce for the tagliatelle or a “cacio e pepe” (cheese and pepper) sauce for the ravioli.
Do you like it?

The rolling pin

Rolling pin

Now it is time to roll out the dough, with the help of a rolling pin.
The dough will become a nice and round sheet, thanks to perseverance and a little bit of manual skills.
At the beginning it will look irregular.
You will need time to learn, but it will be fast! There are some few tips.
We prepare the “sfoglia” and then the different kinds of pasta: fettuccine or ravioli.
Meanwhile we have two pots of water boil: one will be used for the fettuccine and the other one for the filled pasta.

“Cala la pasta”

The water is boiling, the salt has been added, the fresh pasta has been made. It is now time to dip the pasta into the water or, as Italians say, “calare la pasta”.
The pasta is drained and seasoned. This is the best moment: taste it with a glass of good wine!

Would you like to learn more? Discover our Cooking Class!

Thanks to Raffaella Midiri, a professional photographer and food lover who spent an afternoon with us to catch our cooking class’ secrets. We leave you with some kind and mostly appreciated words she wrote for us:

Taking pictures of them during one of their cooking classes was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever lived in my job. They led an intense “fresh pasta cooking class”, made of hands in pasta, curious anecdotes, creative hints, advices and information provided with great competence, always smiling. They created a good working group with meticulous care, carrying everyone to a wonderful final result: tagliatelle and ravioli to enjoy with eyes first, and then to taste. Taking pictures during their cooking class was a real pleasure and, I must admit that I took notes myself between a shot and the other!