Passionate About Pasta

We pick the brains of some dedicated artisans about the art of making pasta from scratch.

- Ally McManus

There’s nothing quite like a bowl of freshly made pasta. It may be a regular feature in your cooking repertoire, or perhaps it’s something reserved only for when you visit your nonna. Pasta can be a great source of joy and connection for many, so we find out just how to cook like an Italian using fresh, simple ingredients and a sprinkle of patience.

Playing with pasta making

There are two main methods of making fresh pasta, according to the late Italian chef and author Marcella Hazan in her book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking: “the machine method” and “the rolling-pin method”.

“Pasta rolled by hand is quite unlike the fresh pasta made with a machine,” explains Marcella in the cookbook. “In hand-rolled pasta, the dough is thinned by stretching it, with a rapid succession of hand motions, over the length of a yard-long wooden dowel. In the machine method, the dough is squeezed between two cylinders until it reaches the desired thinness.”

Colour is another variable at play. “The colour of hand-stretch pasta is demonstrably deeper than that thinned by [a] machine; its surface is etched by a barely visible pattern of intersecting ridges and hollows; when cooked, the pasta sucks in sauce and exudes moistness,” reveals Marcella. “On the palate, it has a gossamer, soft touch that no other pasta can duplicate.”