Pasta Fresca

I decided to make fresh pasta one day when I was really craving fresh tagliatelle, but soon realised I don’t own a pasta machine and therefore needed to settle on making a kind that does not require to be rolled out, ergo ‘pici’. I made a vegetable sauce for it but the best way to eat it is sprinkled with some pepper and Percorino cheese. ​

Serves 4
 
Ingredients
 
1kg of plain flour
Extra virgin olive oil
Water
Salt
 
Directions
 
1. Pour a cup of water, a tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt in a big bowl. Mix using a fork and start adding the flour.
2. Keep adding the flour slowly and mixing until you can no longer mix using a fork.
3. Move the dough to a wooden surface, adding more flour.
4. Keep moulding the dough with your hands until it achieves a smooth, moist and compact consistency. Cover with the previously used bowl. Let it rest for 15 minutes.
5. When the right amount of time has passed, roll out the dough using a rolling pin until it is ½ a cm thick.
6. Using your hands, cover the dough with a thin layer of olive oil. This is so the dough does not dry as you prepare the ‘pici’.
7. Using a pizza cutter cut the dough into lines ½ a centimetre wide. Use your hands to roll the line into a rounder shape.
8. Cut the fresh pasta line into chunks of the length of 2 or 3 centimetres.  
9. Coat in a thin layer of flour so the individual pieces of pasta don’t stick to one another.
10. Boil water for the pasta and cook the ‘pici’ for 4 to 5 minutes, until they rise to the surface. ​

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