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Fresh egg pasta — Jamie Oliver's method
Jamie Oliver's simple ratio: eggs and flour, kneaded until silky, rested, then rolled until you can read a newspaper through it. The base for every ravioli I will ever make.
Jamie's rule is the one I follow: one large egg per 100g of flour. Everything else is patience and elbows.
Method
- 01
Tip the flour onto a clean surface and make a well in the middle, like a volcano. Crack the eggs into the well and add the salt and oil.
- 02
Beat the eggs with a fork, gradually pulling flour in from the inside walls of the well until you have a shaggy, sticky mass.
- 03
Bring it together with your hands and knead — properly — for a full 10 minutes. Push away with the heel of your hand, fold back, turn a quarter. The dough goes from rough to smooth, elastic and satiny.
- 04
Wrap it in cling film and rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. This relaxes the gluten and is not optional: unrested dough fights you and springs back.
- 05
Cut the dough into four pieces, keeping the rest wrapped. Flatten one piece and take it through the pasta machine on the widest setting.
- 06
Fold it into three like a letter and pass it through the widest setting again, three or four times. This laminates it and squares up the edges.
- 07
Now work down the settings one notch at a time, twice each, dusting lightly with semolina, until you can see the shadow of your hand through the sheet — usually the second-thinnest setting for ravioli.
- 08
Lay the sheet on a semolina-dusted tray under a clean tea towel and repeat with the rest. Use the sheets within the hour, before they dry out.
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