Pasta Recipes

Orecchiette literally translates to little ears and you can see why. They look hard to make, but you will find with a bit of practice it’s easy and rewarding. I roll the orecchiette on my homemade gnocchi paddle, to give them a grooved shape, but you can simply use a flat surface as well.

There are plenty fresh pasta recipes on the internet and almost all of them call for Tipo ’00’ flour, which is fairly hard to find in South Africa. I am not planning on moving to Italy any time soon, so I make my pasta dough from a mixture of all purpose and semolina flour in a 50/50 ratio.

Potato gnocchi is more a potato dumpling than a pasta, but we regard it as such anyway. Gnocchi originated in Northern Italy where the climate is perfect for growing potatoes. The potatoes are important here. Gnocchi should be soft and almost melt away in your mouth, for this we need a good starchy potato.

Carbonara is a much-loved Italian favourite, and from its obscure origins to the actual recipe, many debates emanate. Traditionally carbonara is made from whole eggs, guanciale, Pecorino and black pepper, but in my recipe, I use pancetta instead of guanciale, parmesan instead of pecorino and egg yolks instead of the whole egg.