Basic Pasta Dough (Fettuccine)

There are plenty of fresh pasta recipes on the internet and almost all of them call for Tipo '00' flour, which is fairly hard to find in South Africa and quite expensive. I am not planning on moving to Italy any time soon, so I make my pasta dough from a mixture of stone ground all-purpose flour, and semolina flour in a 50/50 ratio.

📝 Ingredients

• 150 g semolina flour (Plus extra for dusting)
• 150 g all purpose flour ((stone ground))
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tbsp olive oil

👨‍🍳 Instructions

1. 1On a clean work surface, combine the semolina flour, all-purpose flour and salt.
2. 2Make a well in the centre then add the eggs and olive oil.
3. 3Break the yolks with a fork, then with your fingers, start mixing the ingredients from the inside out.
4. 4Knead the dough for about 10 minutes to make it pliable. Of course, you can always employ some child labour for this step. :-)
5. 5Shape the dough in a ball, wrap it in cling film, and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
6. 6Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface (1cm thick). This will make it easier to pass through the machine.
7. 7At this stage, you can cut the dough into 2 or 3 equal pieces, as this will make handling easier. Work with one piece at a time, keeping the remaining pieces of dough wrapped and refrigerated.
8. 8Run the dough through your machine's thickest setting, then fold the two ends of the sheet into the middle, and run it through again on the thickest setting.
9. 9Now repeat this process 3 or 4 times until the dough fills out the width of the machine.
10. 10Lightly dust the sheet on both sides and run it through one more time, but this time not all the way. Connect the two ends of the sheet as seen in the picture. Rubbing a drop of water on the sheet will help it stick.
11. 11Run the seam through the machine, then change to a lower setting.
12. 12Repeat this process until the desired thickness is reached. For fettuccine the no.3 setting is perfect.
13. 13Remove the pasta sheet from the machine and cut it into smaller, equal sections. At this stage, you should have perfect lasagne sheets.
14. 14Dust the sheets with semolina flour and run them through the fettuccine cutter.
15. 15To prevent your fettuccine from sticking, dust them with semolina flour, using a sweeping motion as seen in the picture.
16. 16Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until al dente (+-4 minutes).