Homemade Spinach Fettuccine
Try your hand at homemade pasta and use up leftover spinach at the same time. Turn it into a family affair and make this gorgeous green fettuccine together.
Ingredients
- 2 2/3 cups Tipo flour (see Tip)
- 4 free range eggs
- 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
- 120g baby spinach leaves
Tip
- You may need 1-2 tbs extra flour as spinach adds excess moisture to pasta dough.
Method
- Place spinach in a medium bowl and cover with boiling water. Stand for 1 minute or until wilted. Drain well and finely chop.
- Place flour on a clean work surface and make a well in the centre. Crack eggs into the well. Add a pinch of cooking salt. Lightly mix eggs together with a fork. Add oil and spinach to egg then, using your fingertips, gradually combine egg mixture with flour until pieces of dough form. Press the pieces of dough together until they form a smooth ball.
- Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and silky. Divide dough into 2 portions and enclose both in baking paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Attach a pasta machine to work surface and adjust machine's rollers to the widest setting. Unwrap 1 portion of dough and use the palm of your hands to flatten into a rectangle. Dust rollers with flour and roll through dough portion. Fold in shorter sides of dough portion to meet in the centre to form a smaller rectangle and feed through machine again. Repeat process 6 times or until pasta is smooth. Reduce roller width setting by 1 and roll through dough portion. Repeat process, reducing the setting each time, until dough is 1-1.5mm thick. Spread pasta sheets, in a single layer, on clean tea towels.
- Repeat step 4 with remaining dough portion. Set pasta sheets aside for 15 minutes to dry. You want the pasta pliable but not so dry that it will crack.
- To cut pasta into fettuccine by hand, loosely roll up a pasta sheet starting from the shortest end. Trim ends and discard. Use a sharp knife to cut pasta crossways at 5mm intervals. Unroll pasta.
- To cut pasta into fettuccine using the pasta machine, attach fettuccine cutting attachment to machine and feed pasta sheets, one at a time, through attachment.