Putting It Together
Cooking Skills: Pasta 2
Chapter 9 · Putting It Together
Skill goal
Plan a pasta session and a make-ahead dinner, and record your own skills and recipes.
Shopping list for this chapter
The basics
Making pasta by hand takes time, and the way to enjoy it is to make a lot at once and freeze most of it. This chapter ties together the dough, the shapes, the fillings and the sauces into a session, then a dinner for guests. Then you write your own table of skills and house recipes.
Freezing and drying
| Method | How | Keep for | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freeze, shaped and filled pasta | Single layer on a floured or semolina tray, freeze solid, then bag | Up to 3 months for best quality | Cook from frozen, never thaw |
| Freeze, cut ribbons | Loosely nest on a tray, freeze solid, then bag | Up to 3 months | Drop in boiling water from frozen, separating gently |
| Freeze, gnocchi | Same as filled pasta | Up to 3 months | Cook from frozen |
| Fridge | Covered, on a tray | Cook within 24 hours | Fresh pasta contains raw egg |
| Dry (limited) | Hang or lay out in a warm, airy place until brittle, which can take a day or more | A few days, in an airtight container | Under-dried pasta can go mouldy: when in doubt, freeze instead |
Try it
Level 1 · Project
A pasta afternoon (3 meals from one session)
The skill here is planning: one batch of dough, divided by shape, and a filling made while the dough rests. You eat one meal, and freeze the rest.
Ingredients (6 portions)
- 300 g plain flour (or "00")
- 3 Lion-marked medium eggs
- 1 pinch fine salt
- 4 tbsp fine semolina, for dusting
- 200 g ricotta, drained
- 60 g cooked spinach, squeezed completely dry
- 40 g parmesan, grated
- 1 pinch nutmeg, salt and pepper
- 0:00: make the dough (300 g flour, 3 eggs, salt), knead for 8 to 10 minutes, wrap and rest for 30 minutes. Wash your hands and the board.
- 0:15: make the filling: mix the ricotta, spinach, parmesan and seasoning. Drain well.
- 0:40: cut the dough into 3. Roll one piece and cut tagliatelle for 2 portions. Nest it and dust with semolina.
- 1:00: roll the other two pieces. Make about 24 ravioli as in chapter 4 and put them on a semolina-dusted tray.
- 1:40: freeze the ravioli and half of the tagliatelle on trays, uncovered, for 1 to 2 hours, then bag, label with the date and put back in the freezer.
- 2:00: cook the remaining fresh tagliatelle for dinner with a sauce from chapter 8.
- 2:20: wash up. Check the board, tools and your hands are clean.
A make-ahead dinner for four
A starter and a main, both prepared ahead, so you spend the evening with your guests. The menu: pea and mint ravioli with lemon butter (chapter 4), followed by lasagne verde (chapter 7) with a green salad. Fruit to finish.
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Day before | Make the ragù and white sauce (chapter 7). Roll and cut the lasagne sheets, freeze or refrigerate (cook within 24 hours). Assemble the lasagne verde, cover and chill. |
| Morning | Make the pea and mint filling and fill the ravioli (chapter 4). Freeze on a tray. |
| 2 hours before | Take the lasagne out of the fridge. Heat the oven. Make the lemon butter base and the salad. |
| 1 hour before | Bake the lasagne (covered, then uncovered). It takes 45 to 50 minutes. |
| 20 minutes before serving | Cook the ravioli from frozen (5 to 6 minutes), toss in lemon butter and serve as a starter. |
| After the starter | Rest the lasagne for 15 minutes, check it is steaming hot in the middle, and serve with a green salad. |
Scale: one batch of ravioli (200 g flour, 2 eggs) makes about 24, or 6 each for four people. The lasagne verde makes 6 portions.
Experiments
Experiment
Fresh or frozen filled pasta
The final check.
- Cook some ravioli straight after making them, and some after 2 weeks frozen, both for the right time.
- Taste them side by side.
Look for: The frozen ones are very close, and need about a minute longer. If they are good, you have a freezer full of dinners.
Experiment
A timed session
How long does it really take?
- Do the pasta afternoon and write down the real times against the plan.
- Note where you were slower than expected.
Look for: The first time, shaping takes much longer than planned. By the third session you will be faster.
Experiment
Your own filling
Invent one.
- Choose a cooked filling (for example roast mushroom and ricotta, or leftover roast vegetables with cheese). Make sure it is dry and fully cooked.
- Fill and cook six ravioli and write down the recipe.
Look for: A good filling is dry, seasoned, and holds its shape on a spoon.
Your skills table
| Skill | Can do it | Still practising | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Making and kneading an egg dough | |||
| Rolling by hand to 1.5 mm | |||
| Hand-shaped pasta | |||
| Coloured doughs | |||
| Ravioli | |||
| Tortellini and other shapes | |||
| Gnocchi | |||
| Lasagne from scratch | |||
| A light sauce for fresh pasta | |||
| Freezing pasta |
Your house recipes
| Recipe | Dough | Filling or sauce | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday pasta | |||
| Weekend filled pasta | |||
| Dinner party dish | |||
| Freezer favourite |
Tasting notes
| What I tried | Method or amount | What I saw | What I thought | Will I do it again? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pasta afternoon: tagliatelle | ||||
| Pasta afternoon: ravioli | ||||
| Dinner party starter | ||||
| Dinner party lasagne | ||||
| Fresh vs frozen | ||||
| Your own filling |
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Ran out of time | Tried to do everything | Make just the dough and one shape; freeze the rest |
| Dough dried out while waiting | Left uncovered | Wrap it in cling film or a bowl, always |
| Frozen pasta stuck together | Frozen in a clump | Freeze on a tray first, then bag |
| Dried pasta mouldy | Not dry enough | Throw it away; freeze next time |
| Dinner party too stressful | Too much to cook at the end | Do everything possible the day before |
Food safety: the whole session
The dough contains raw egg and raw flour. The Food Standards Agency advises against eating or tasting uncooked flour or dough, because raw flour is not treated to kill bacteria such as E. coli. Don't taste the dough or any filling that contains raw egg, wash your hands, the board and your tools after handling raw dough, and use Lion-marked eggs. Cook fresh pasta thoroughly. Pregnant women, children under 5, people aged 65 and over, and anyone with a weakened immune system should be especially careful.Uncooked fresh pasta, which contains raw egg, should be kept in the fridge (0 to 5°C) and cooked within 24 hours, or frozen straight away. (There is no pasta-specific official guidance, so this is a cautious rule based on the Food Standards Agency's general advice on chilling and freezing homemade food.) Freeze it in a single layer on a tray, then bag it, and cook from frozen.
Label everything in the freezer with the date. Dry pasta only as a limited trick: it must be completely brittle and kept for only a few days. Lasagne and filled pasta must be steaming hot throughout when served.
Cooked pasta is a starchy food, and like rice it can grow bacteria if it is left warm. There is no pasta-specific official guidance, so this course uses the cautious rule: cool it quickly (within about an hour), put it in the fridge, and eat it within 24 hours; freeze it if you won't. Reheat until steaming hot all the way through.
Checkpoint: can you do this now?
- I can plan a pasta-making session so nothing is wasted.
- I can freeze fresh pasta safely and cook it from frozen.
- I can prepare a dinner for guests ahead of time.
- I have my own skills table and house recipes.
- I can make egg pasta, filled pasta, gnocchi and lasagne from scratch.
Next chapter
That finishes Cooking Skills: Pasta 2. The next course in the series is Potatoes: boiled, mashed, roast, chips, baked and gratins.