Recipe: Pappardelle floral pasta and basil pesto

Serves: 3

Ingredients:

For the pasta:

300g (2.5 cups) ’00’ grade pasta flour

3 Leghorn White eggs

A selection of your favourite fresh herbs (we use thyme and sage)

A selection of edible flowers (options: more to garnish)

For the basil pesto:

1-2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp pine nuts

2 tbsp olive oil

A bunch of Greek basil

Pinch of salt and black pepper

METHOD:

To begin making the homemade pappardelle Start by placing the flour on a board or

in a bowl.

Make a well in the middle and add the eggs. Beat the eggs with a fork and then start

incorporating the flour until you obtain a thoroughly combined mixture.

Knead the dough with your hands, shaping, pulling, stretching (alternatively you can

use a mixer with a dough hook).

Knead it until the dough is smooth and elastic. If it sticks to your hand when touched

then add a little more flour and knead till smooth. You can also help yourself with a

rolling pin, rolling and folding and rolling again the dough. The process takes a while

so be patient! It’s a necessary step so that the pasta becomes smooth and silky, not

lumpy and dry.

Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough till it is flat enough to feed into a pasta machine

on level ‘0’. Continue feeding it through ‘0’, folding it in half then feeding it through

repeatedly until a regular shape. Make sure to sprinkle lightly with flour to stop it from

sticking. Then you can make it thinner with the machine.

If you use a rolling pin for the whole process, make sure to roll it out and stretch it

into thin sheets. Make sure to have 2 (or an even number of) sheets with a relatively

similar size. Or you can cut a long one into 2, as you will need to layer one on top of

the other.

When you have a thin long sheet of pasta dough, stretch it on your work plane and

arrange your fresh herbs and flowers on it. Then carefully lay another sheet on top.

With the help of a rolling pin, carefully roll over so that the two sheets of dough get

stuck together.

If you are using a pasta machine, you can pass the dough through it and you will

really begin to see the edible flowers and herbs showing through the pasta dough.

Cut the pasta. I chose to cut it into long strips, like Tagliatelle or Pappardelle, but you

can cut it in different shapes/sizes. To cut it into long strips, you just need to fold the

pasta a couple of times and then just cut with a knife.

To prepare the basil pesto, just mix/blend together all the pesto ingredients. It’s as

simple as that!

To cook the pasta, put it in boiling water and cook for 3 minutes, combine with the

basil pesto and serve immediately.