Vegan Spinach Tagliatelle
Servings: 6 people
Equipment
- Saucepan
- Measuring Jug
- Stick Blender or Food Processor
- Colander
- Fork
- Bench Scraper (optional)
- Clingfilm
- Rolling Pin
- Knife
Ingredients
- 600 g Semolina or Plain Flour
- 150 g Spinach Fresh or Frozen
- All-Purpose Flour For Dusting
Instructions
To make the pasta dough:
- To begin, boil the spinach. Drain the spinach over a measuring jug to retain the liquid.
- Place the spinach in a blender or saucepan and add back in some of the spinach water. Blend with a stick blender or similar. We’re aiming to achieve around 300-400ml of spinach puree.
- On a clean work surface, pour out the semolina. Using your fingertips, create a large well in the centre. Ensure that the walls of the well are high enough to hold the spinach puree and prevent any spillages over the sides. Leave a thin layer of semolina at the bottom of the well. You can head over to our Instagram stories for a tutorial.`
- Pour the spinach puree into the well.
- Using a fork, slowly swirl the edges of the semolina into the middle of the well until it reaches a consistency that resembles pancake batter.
- Now, using a bench scraper, or *clean* hands, slowly fold the outside edges of the dough into the centre of the well. Incorporate the two by chopping through the mixture with the bench scraper.
- Start to roughly combine the dough. If your dough is a bit dry, you can add some of the leftover spinach water or puree.
- Once you’ve achieved a crumbly dough, remove any excess semolina to create a clean work surface.
- Now knead the dough. To knead, use the heel of your dominant hand to roll the dough towards you, like creating the crest of a wave. Then, using the heel of that same hand, quickly push the dough away from you. Give the dough a ¼ turn then repeat this movement for 5 minutes. It can be quite tiring but stick with it!
- After the 5 minutes, the dough should be springy to the touch. Form it into a ball and wrap it in clingfilm. Set the dough aside to rest for 15 minutes.
- For the second knead, simply repeat the process as before, kneading for around 5-7 minutes.
- Form it into a ball shape and wrap the dough in clingfilm, giving it a further 2 hours to rest.
- Once the dough has rested, unwrap the clingfilm and cut off ¼ segment of the dough. Re-wrap the remaining dough to keep it fresh.
- Generously dust a clean work surface with all-purpose flour to prevent the pasta dough from sticking.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out the segment of dough as thinly as possible into a rectangular shape. You’re looking for about 1-2mm thin.
- From the short edge, lightly roll up the dough.
- Using a sharp knife, slice the rolled dough into strips. A wider strip will be more like pappardelle, a slightly thinner strip will be like tagliatelle, even thinner will be like linguine, and extremely thin slices will be like angel hair! Watch our step-by-step tutorial on Instagram for how this is done!
- Unfurl the strands of dough.
- Then, dry the tagliatelle. I like to do this step by hanging the tagliatelle on an oven rack through the slots. You can then place the rack in an oven – with the oven off! Dry it out for at least an hour or so.
To cook the tagliatelle:
- Bring a pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Then add the tagliatelle and cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Drain and combine the pasta with a sauce of your choice. Don’t forget we’ve got two pesto sauces to try, as well as an aglio e olio sauce and a great tomato sauce recipe!
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
This recipe makes enough for 6 people. However, the tagliatelle is great for home freezing. Simply freeze however many portions you want (for fresh pasta it’s about 100g per person) then defrost and cook at a later date!