Home made Pasta (Basic dough)

There's nothing better than home made pasta, much much better than the synthetic processed ones from the super market.
Serves 2.

Ingredients:
- 200g High Grade flour or Tipo 00 if you can get your hands on it
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 generous Tbsp olive oil
- sea salt

Preparation:
Sift the flour on your bench top. make a well in the center. Sprinkle salt to taste in the middle, add the eggs and olive oil in the center and start mixing the eggs clockwise by corporating a little flour from the sides at a time. When most of the liquid is incorporated start kneading for about 10 minutes until a silky smooth dough forms. You know it's ready when the dough bounces back when pressing with a finger. If the mixture feels too dry, wet your hands a little bit and continue kneading. Too wet? Add a little flour at a time.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for at least half an hour (preferably 1 hour). When ready to use, lightly dust the dough with plain flour and cut in half. Start rolling it through a pasta machine on the widest setting. (If you haven't got a pasta machine, you have to work yourself into a sweat and start rolling the dough with a rolling pin. This takes time though...)

After rolling it once, fold both sides inwards and feed it through the pasta machine again. Repeat the folding and rolling two more times.

Then continue feeding the pasta on a smaller setting, feed it 3-4 times on the same setting before changing the setting, By doing this the gluten in the dough will get the chance to stretch evenly.

When the dough is thin enough for your liking (on my pasta machine this is number 3 of 7 settings) you can do with it whatever you want. Cut it into (big) ribbons, leave it in one piece for lasagna sheets, ravioli or cannelloni or if you have an addition to your pasta machine you can make spaghetti or fettuccine. Always make sure after cutting the pasta to flour it so it won't stick. You can leave the pasta to dry or when using a filling dust with plain flour, cover with cling film and place in the fridge.

Be careful when cooking fresh pasta as it needs half the time of store-bought pasta. Taste during cooking to see if the pasta is al dente and/or to your liking.