Homemade Colourful Farfalle Pasta

I’ve been thinking of making fresh coloured past for a long time. Not any colorued pasta though, I wanted to make stripy pasta. I've always liked pasta shapes that are different from the usual kind you find at the grocery store and these coloured lines make the common farfalle eccentric and eye-catching. I guessed the doses and I ended up with lots od dough. Not to worry, I made tagliatelle, lasagne and maltagliati, the last ones Have alway been called "maccheroni" at in our household. The carrot dough was a bit disappointing, too light in colour, too similar to the basic egg pasta. If you try and make coloured pasta I do not recommend the carrot one unless you have super-orange carrots or ups the concentration of these dough. Alternatively, you can make it and use this mixture as a base instead of the simple egg dough. It could be a way to make reluctant diners eat hidden vegetables.

Here's the recipe, try, change, have fun and spend time with hands-on, too.

For the plain egg dough:
• 300 g all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 pinch of salt

For the carrot dough:
• 170 g all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons mashed carrots
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch of salt

For the spinach dough:
• 150 g all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons mashed spinach
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch of salt

For the beetroot dough:
• 250 g all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons mashed beetroot (increase the dose if you want a darker pasta)
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch of salt

Pour the flour onto a work surface and make a well.

Add the egg and a pinch of salt.

Beat the egg with a fork, and begin to incorporate the flour a little at a time.

For the carrots dough add the carrots previously boiled, allowed them to cool and run them through a food mill or mash them with a hand blender.

For the spinach dough add the spinach previously steamed if you use frozen spinach, let it cool, squeeze and run them through a food mill or mash them with a hand blender.

For the beetroot dough add ready cooked beetroots and pass them through a food mill or mash them with a hand blender. Drain beetroots and increased the dose I gave if you wish. I noticed that during cooking the red colour tends to fade, if you start from a higher beetroots concentration is likely that you will notice less discoloration.

Knead the dough with your hands or with the aid of a spatula so that all the flour is incorporated. If the dough is too dry you can wet your hands or add a few drops of water in order to obtain a firm but elastic dough. Once all the different doughs are ready cover with a tea towel.

Starting from the plain dough, in my case I also used the carrot dough, cut a piece of dough, flatten it and sprinkle with flour.

Run the dough through the pasta machine, I have one of those classic hand crank machine, I really envy my mother’s food processor with a pasta machine attachment. No effort in that case, but I must confess that, if I have time in my hands, a little exercise doesn’t scare me. Roll out the dough to a thickness of a few millimeters, the third smallest setting in my case and put on a lightly floured surface.
Proceed in the same way with the red and the green dough. Then make tagliatelle with the coloured dough.
If you haven't got a pasta machine you can use the old rolling pin, nothing wrong with it.

Moisten the basic egg dough with a little water and place the tagliatelle on the basis alternating the colours Press lightly with your fingers so that the tagliatelle stick to the base. Cut the excess coloured pasta strips.

Flatten the dough with the pasta machine, or the rolling pin, until it’s a few millimetres thick. On my machine that is achieved running the dough through the second before last setting. You'll have to get a smooth pasta sheet where the colored stripes will become one with the dough base.

With a sharp knife cut rectangles of dough of about 3 cm in height so that the colored lines run vertically. With the wheel pasta cutter trim the pasta edges then cut in half. After a while I realized that it’s less time consuming trimming the dough edges before cutting it into strips and then cut the segments in half.

Using two fingers tighten the rectangle of dough around the centre until it forms a small hump, gently tighten to keep the shape to your farfalle.

Et voilà! Here are your farfalle.

I put them on paper trays sprinkled with a little flour and I made them dry for 24 hours before using them because I was afraid that if cooked while they were still fresh would lose its shape. After making them, however, I saw a cookery show on TV where, by sheer coincidence, a cook made some farfalle pasta nad cooked them straight away. They kept their shape, but they were much thicker than mine and much less beautiful. I’m not entirely convinced though, maybe it works, but I would not risk it. I must say we were very happy with the results of my playing with pasta dough, such a nice dish of farfalle served with a great sausages sauce. The cooking was longer than expected, I thought it it would take just a couple of minutes but in fact it took about 10 minutes for the pasta to be cooked to perfection, the texture was great, al dente and with the center slightly more compact. A lot of work, but it was well worth the effort.