Choosing Dry Pasta and Fresh GF Pasta Recipe

I used to hate gluten free pasta! I found it sticky and awful! I soon realised that rice pasta (for me) was a poor replacement. My mum bought me some Orgran Corn and Vegetable Pasta when I went to visit and I loved it. It was more tasty than wheat pasta and the texture was similar to that of 'normal' pasta.

I then discovered Sainsburys Free From Corn Pasta. Again the texture was less sticky and closer to what I was used to. I find this better for pasta bakes as it has a less distinctive flavour than the Orgran one.

So for me corn pasta was definitely the way forward!

I was then bought a pasta machine for Christmas last year. This enabled me to make fresh pasta with eggs and also opened up the possibilities of making filled pasta. (like ravioli.) I used the recipe from my pasta machine with an extra egg and a mix of cornflour and Doves Farm GF plain flour. I later added the Xanthan Gum as the first batch was too crumbly to put through the machine.


(This was the first successful pasta I made with my machine, drying)

Fresh GF Pasta

350g Plain GF Flour
150g Cornflour
1 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
4-5 eggs
2 tablespoons of oil

1. Mix the flours together in a big bowl
2. Add Xanthan Gum
   
3. Beat 3 of the eggs in with the oil
4. Add the liquid to the flour bit by bit, mixing in between
5. Add more egg as required to make the mixture come together into a ball of dough
6. Wrap dough in cling film and place in fridge for 30 mins
7. Remove cling film and split dough into 8 similar size pieces
8. Take a piece at a time and follow the pasta maker instructions to make pasta shapes of your choice!
   

You can freeze this as dough or as pre-made pasta shaped as long as you use it within a month of freezing.

Splitting the mixture into 8 should make it manageable sized to put it through the pasta maker - it stretches a lot during the process and can get quite difficult to handle if the pieces are too big.

Just a word of warning - making pasta this way is reasonably time consuming as each section is put through the machine up to 10 times to get the desired thickness and shape.

This pasta can be kept in a sealed tub in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Cook it by placing in a pan of boiling water for 2-3 mins. Spaghetti shaped pieces also make a good replacement for egg noodles with oriental meals.

Try making filled pasta parcels by leaving the stretched pasta as long strips (like lasagne) and cutting into squares. In the past I have made mixes of mascapone and cooked spinach (gorgeous) and soft cheese, salami and smoked ham. Seal them with any left over egg. These need cooking for a bit longer to ensure the filling is heated through.