In our house pasta is often a quick meal done on a night we are busy. Occasionally we decide to make it more than that and make the pasta from scratch. In order to roll it out thinly we have a pasta machine - two metal rollers that can be adjusted to different thickness's. I have also used it to cheat when making filo pastry - it just about goes thin enough to get away without lots of rolling and stretching!
Although I use a recipe from an Italian cookery book I can't be fussed by the kneading nonsense, so I dump all the ingredients in the bread machine on a knead cycle before letting it rest in the fridge for a while. Once rested I squash it into a flat-ish slab and start feeding it through the pasta machine - a couple of passes at each thickness before turning it up. I often have to split the dough into two batches part way through this process.
A trick I learnt somewhere is that once you have enough length put the ends together to form a loop - if you keep the loop supported with one hand you can just spin the pasta through really quickly.
Finally split the loop and use the rolled pasta. My pasta machine has a tagliatelle cutter so I often make that. Simply feed it through, scoop the strands so they fall into a waiting container (I had a biscuit tin just out of shot) and then spread out on a sheet of parchment before cooking. Pasta this fresh often cooks in less than 2 minutes!
The finished pasta, served with salad and a roasted tomato and chorizo sauce.
