I make a fair bit of pasta. This is my standard fresh pasta recipe – can be adapted for most pasta shapes.

Semolina is a coarse, ‘hard’ pasta flour from the south of italy. Usually used for making desserts and porridge in south africa, it contains more gluten than the ‘soft’ flours and gives pasta a more satisfying and chewy bite.

However, it is more expensive, and if you make a lot of pasta, it tends to add up! If you’re making pasta for a special occasion, use 100% semolina, otherwise 50/50 or 2/3 semolina is also fine. Imported Italian semolina is delicious, but even cheap local stuff still makes a fine pasta.

Don’t add salt to your pasta dough.

This recipe is for a generous portion for 2 people – if you’re throwing a dinner party, generally 75g of flour per person is enough, and when scaling up use 1 egg per 100g (not per 75g as shown here) – so 500g flour = 5 eggs = pasta for 6-7 people.

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Standard pasta recipe

a kitchen staple you should memorize

Course pasta

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 2

Equipment

• pasta machine or rolling pin

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 150 g semolina (durum wheat) with extra for dusting – can use cake flour as well (see above).

Instructions

• mix the eggs and flour together in a bowk, then turn out onto a well floured surface. The dough will be a little sticky, keep sprinkling the surface of the ball with flour until it no longer sticks to your hands.
• Knead vigorously for 10 minutes – if the dough sticks to your hands, sprinkle with flour. Knead hard – the dough must be warm and elastic by the time you're done with it. Cover with plastic and let rest for 30m.
• Get a large pot of very salty water to a fast boil.

  If you have a pasta machine, divide the pasta into 3 pieces and pass through until size 5, making sure to sprinkle with flour as you go. Cut into your preferred shape, then throw directly into the pot, boiling for about 1 minute before removing. If using immediately, mix directly with your sauce and serve. If not, rinse the starch off and toss with oil to stop the pasta sticking to itself.