Angel hair pasta with ragù

Serves 8 Starters and mains

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Method

The day before, make the ragù. Use a food processor to purée the onion, carrot, celery with the olive oil and 50ml of the white wine. Put a large casserole or Dutch oven over a medium heat and add the mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon for around 7 minutes until it softens a little, then add the minced pork and beef, crumbled sausages and dried chilli flakes, if using. Stir well until the meat is no longer pink, then add the rest of the wine and season with the salt.

Wait for the alcohol to evaporate, then add the other meats and stir well until the pieces are lightly coloured. Crush the whole tomatoes, removing any tough base-of-the- stalk bits, then tip into the pot along with the marjoram.

Add enough water to completely cover the meat and simmer very gently, with the lid on, for around 3 hours until the pieces of meat are fork tender. Make sure there is always liquid covering the meat and check the seasoning and add more salt if necessary halfway through cooking. Once cool, transfer to the fridge to rest overnight.

Meanwhile, make the pasta dough. Tip the flour on to
a pasta board and make a generous well in the middle, then crack the eggs into it. Use a fork or your fingers to scramble them as if you are making an omelette; the liquid should not be clumpy with yolk and white but properly mixed together.

Slowly draw in a bit of flour at a time, making sure there’s a consistently smooth mixture, then heap this together and start working the dough into a ball. Use a light touch when the egg is still wet, so you do not get too much stuck to your hands.

When you have a ball of pasta dough and no flour left on the board, start kneading – a soft massage where you use your body weight to lean in on the pasta and make a dent with the heel of your hand and push forward on the board. Flatten, push, then pull the pasta back over itself constantly for 10 minutes – it’s a good idea to time it. You will end up with a smooth, bouncy ball of pasta.

Once it’s kneaded, put the dough in a bowl that fits the size of your ball and cover it with a close-fitting lid or dampened cloth and let it rest for at least 1 hour.

Pat the round ball down into a disc on the pasta board and take a pasta rolling pin in both hands. Roll out the dough, turning it the same direction a few degrees at a time. When the dough is the size of a large plate, start rolling the outer third of the circle,

and keep turning the dough through 90 degrees in the same direction. Stop your pin just before the edge of the dough so it doesn’t get ragged and thin around the circumference. Every 6 or 7 strokes, roll the pasta up around the pin, give it a tug, so it’s a good fit and not baggy, then roll it out to iron out the central ‘bump’ in the dough. It’s useful to start with your hands in the middle of the pin, then push and smooth your hands over the top of the pin to its edges. Bring them to the centre again as you pull the pin back.

Your pasta sheet will eventually become too big to turn by hand, so roll it up over your pin, smoothing the pasta as you do so, before turning it, and rolling it out again, using the same smoothing method.

You can drape the sheet off the edge of your board to help anchor and stretch it, being careful not to lean against it. To check it is evenly rolled, roll up about a third over your pin – keeping hold of the edges – then hold it up to the light. Darker patches mean the dough is thicker, so lay it back out and
go over these areas again.

Let the sheet rest for 5 minutes, then gently roll like a carpet into a loose, 3 or 4 finger- wide log; do not press down hard as you roll, and try to leave some air between the layers.

Take a sharp, long-bladed knife and cut the dough into the thinnest tagliolini you can make. After cutting a few strands, shake out and fluff them with the tips of your fingers to separate them. Keep the pasta well spread out on your board and let the strands dry a little. Alternatively, roll the dough to the thinnest setting on a pasta machine and use the tagliolini attachment.

Use a sieve and scoop up the pasta strands to make a loose nest. Take a square of kitchen paper and turn the pasta out on to it. Let the pasta dry like this overnight at room temperature – this allows it to cope with the hearty sauce.

The next day, reheat the meat sauce. Sprinkle the base of
a large serving platter with a generous layer of grated cheese. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the pasta, a nest at a time, handling it carefully as it will be fragile until it hits the hot water and firms up. Cook for 60–90 seconds, or a little more if you are using a small pan and the water temperature drops dramatically when you plunge all the pasta in it.

Drain well and transfer to the cheese-strewn platter, ladle a generous amount of sauce on top, add more cheese, then repeat with the other pasta nests. Toss the mixture well before serving.