Adventures with a pasta machine

After much hankering, I have finally given in and bought a pasta machine. It rocks - it looks so industrial and businesslike and meaningful clamped to the bench top. Just makes you want to make pasta.
I chose the egg and flour method for my first ever batch. It’s a bit like making bread dough since you have to knead it until it is firm and springy, and it mustn’t ever get sticky. I used strong bread flour and that seemed to work quite well. I had a lovely messy, floury time preparing the dough then I put it through the machine. Disaster! It stuck everywhere. So I floured and kneaded it again and second time it went through like it should, folding itself neatly as it came out the bottom end. Following the instructions I put it through the first roller several times (I guess this is how you make lasagna sheets as well) then through the dies to make pasta strips. They came out all different lengths (I haven’t got the hang of making neat oblong sheets yet) but they parted easily and I twisted some into pasta curls and dried the rest in straight lengths on kitchen towels. I cooked the twists fresh that night and they were delicious, but the strips, cooked a couple of days later, seemed to take forever to cook and were still hard - to think I thought the whole thing would turn to mush as soon as I put it in the water!
But at least I know I can make pasta - I’m not sure why this is important to me, but it is. I felt all Jamie-ish slapping the dough around and running it through the machine - and the result, with the fresh pasta, was certainly worth the effort. Effort it is, make no mistake, turning that handle is not for weaklings.

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