The world is a small place, especially when Instagram and food are involved… Here’s a guest recipe for fresh pasta using wild herbs, created by Thyago Rocha of O Alho Francês especially for Energya. Our shared love of food and of taking endless pictures of food on Instagram sparked an idea for a recipe (a “freshy fresh pasta” recipe, as Thyago calls it). And now, over to Thyago who will explain how to make this pasta dish.

Here is Thyago introducing his fresh pasta recipe on instagram.

If you speak Portuguese, you can watch the step-by-step video tutorial from Thyago.

A meeting on instagram generated a not so unlikely friendship as it might initially look like (I do not believe in coincidences). It all started when I decided to spend a month in Italy to learn the language of that country and then continued when I travelled to Portugal and then decided to live and study gastronomy in Italy again. And since then we virtually follow each other around the world.

Well, I love new challenges, especially if they are related to food… in a not too sunny day (yes, where I’m living now it´s rain and cold weather almost every day – Curitiba, Paraná – Brazil ) I received a message from the other side of the ocean asking me if I would be interested to create a kind of recipe using fresh, wild and “green” herbs from none other than my dear friend Paola, this lovely British – Italian virtual friend that I had met a few years ago. Obviously I said immediately ‘Yes!’, and for a few months, during short breaks at work, I found myself drawing some fancy formulas, building some new ideas in my head, until that I realised the initial recipe suggestion. This simple, original, dynamic, fresh and very aromatic “pasta fresca with fresh and wild herbs”.

 

After this premise, let’s get down to business.

Serves 6

PASTA INGREDIENTS

– 500 gr. flour

– 3 eggs

– 5 egg yolks

– 100 gr. chopped fresh peppermint

– 80 gr. chopped fresh rosemary

 

METHOD

Step 1 – In a bowl, mix the flour, eggs and yolks. Break down the yolks with a fork.

 

Step 2 – Add the fresh herbs (do you see why we called this recipe “freshy fresh pasta”?)

 

Step 3 – After a good mix, you should get a homogeneous dough…

 

Step 4 – … more or less like this. And after 20-30 minutes in the fridge, wrapped in cling film, the dough is ready to work

 

Step 5 – All right, this is a crucial point… if you have a pasta machine, then lucky you, because you will probably get to eat the pasta quicker than others who don’t.

In a pasta machine, we can stretch the pasta to the right thickness. If the pasta is too thin, the danger is to over cook pasta, which will likely disintegrate. But if you are old school or have a husband who needs some “discipline” sometimes (hahaha, this joke never gets old), you can easily use a rolling pin. It is a fact that the pasta will never be as thin when you roll it by hand to the one made with the pasta machine, but honestly, when I prepare pasta for myself or closer friends, I always make it 100% by hand!

Step 6 – You can organise the pasta sheet to the size you want before you cut it; the size is up to you, I always cut the tagliatelle with a minimum of 25 cm, to a maximum of 30 cm in length.

 

Step 7 – This step and the following two steps are only for those using a rolling pin.

 

Step 8 – After rolling the pasta dough sheet from each end towards the middle, we cut it like this into 1 cm sections.

 

Step 9 – and unwinding the pasta ribbons one by one.

 

Step 10 – and for those who have a pasta machine, it’s way easier and quicker to cut the pasta into lovely tagliatelle or, if you prefer, pappardelle (slightly wider).

 Serving Suggestions

And to finish, I suggest a fresh sauce, with fresh ingredients, here we have prawns, squid rings and tentacles with cherry tomatoes, each sautéed separately in good quality olive oil flavoured with garlic and thyme. To add to all this freshness, a beautiful bottle of “Vinho Verde Português” (Portuguese green wine) served really, really cold.

I really hope this suggestion could please everyone because it was designed exclusively for dear Paola with love, passion and the best energy we have inside of us.

Buon appetito!

Thyago Rocha Sanches de Oliveira.

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