Pasta with a famous chef! - Part 1 (read on)

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Hello! Today I want to tell you all how to make pasta. You may be thinking, "What? Pasta is really hard!" but it is so simple. Seriously! You don't even need a pasta maker! I went to my uncle's house (he is a great chef!) and he taught me how to make lots of pasta dishes. You can make loads out of one batch of pasta mix!

1. First, we have the simple pasta base. It is really easy to make - just mix together 125g of pizza/pasta flour (you can't use normal flour as the dough will not be the right consistency when you knead it) 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk. Before you knead or cut the dough you will need to leave the base in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

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2. This is homemade pesto (⇦⇦⇦). Obviously it is not pasta, but it tastes amazing with it. Again, it is really easy to make; you don't even need a blender! What you need to do is put 25g wild garlic leaves into a blender (if you have read my wild garlic blog you might know a little about this - if you haven't, here is a link:  http://www.headchefbeth.co.uk/2018/04/our-walk-in-woods-wild-garlic.html). If these are not in season you won't be able to use them, so just crush 1 -2 cloves of garlic into it instead. Add in 25g basil leaves and 150ml rapeseed oil and then pulse, scraping the sides when you need to. Meanwhile, toast 40g walnuts in a pan until you can smell them (this makes them even more nutty and means the juices won't go into the pesto), add them into the blender and pulse again. Once finished, stir in 50g parmesan cheese, but do not put this in the blender as it makes it go crumbly and weird. Also stir in some salt and pepper.  Alternatively, if you don't have a blender, chop the garlic and basil leaves, crush the walnuts then pour in the oil, cheese and seasoning and give it a mix. This should serve about six people.

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3. Next up... does anyone know what gnocchi is? If you don't, then it is a kind of ball made with potato and other ingredients. Potato Pasta! But this one is made with yummy (not for me!!!) ricotta cheese; not potato. All you need to do is wash 105g baby spinach and then cook it in a pan with no extra water until it has shrunk in size. Then mix 245g ricotta cheese, 42g parmesan cheese, 2 egg yolks and 70g pizza/pasta flour in a bowl. Next, when the spinach has cooled, squeeze the spinach really hard so it goes into a big clump and there is no water left in it. Chop it up finely and stir it in. Add in some salt and pepper. Then, shape one - just one! - into a ball and drop it into a pan of boiling water. This is your tester: taste it after it has been cooked (it will float when it is cooked) and if you need to, add in some more salt or pepper. Shape the rest of the mixture and drop into the boiling water. Then cook them again in a frying pan with some salted butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. You can serve them with some grated parmesan, if you like. Even if you don't like cheese, like me, they still taste marvellous! Since they are cooked, you can taste the spinach more than the cheese, surprisingly. Phew!!
This is enough for one person, I served mine with basil, parmesan and wild garlic flowers.


All of these tasted amazing (obviously)! There are more recipes coming, so keep checking my website to see if I have posted anything new!

P.S. Do you have a lot of egg whites left over? If you do, read my blog on meringues to use them up!