3, 2, 1 … is Christmas. Even this year it arrived without us noticing it, this year catches us unprepared, despite the good intentions and agendas full of lists of things to do and dates in which (we should have) to do them. Gifts, small or large, greeting cards, phone calls, menus. Difficult to put a green tick on everything, every year we tell ourselves that the next we will make it, and instead …

Surprise with tradition

Instead, even this year we were able to test ourselves with that tutorial to make a wreath of Finnish pine branches to hang at the entrance door, or to write the menu by hand to impress our guests after following the whole autumn a calligraphy course. But this does not mean we will not astonish them. Why amazement at Christmas lives in perfumes, memories and traditions. Even the eye wants its part, of course, but an egg drowned in a fountain of flour sprinkled with new oil … this is the scent of tradition, this is the best gift to do, to make and do.

Christmas pasta: it takes fresh!

You can improvise the appetizers. But pasta, at Christmas, it's fresh! More difficult to say than done, it takes some 'time available, but the Christmas holidays exist on purpose to give us the magic of that time that at another time of the year seems impossible to find, and that when there' it is, it leaves indelible memories. Perhaps that of fresh pasta is the oldest recipe in the world, but on its side also has the fact of being back of great fashion, and – do not say no, without having tried – even one of the easiest in the world.

10 first courses based on fresh pasta for Christmas lunch

How to prepare fresh pasta for Christmas

Let's start from the beginning: an egg for every ounce of flour, in a fountain, add oil and salt and start to incorporate the flour with the wet ingredients using a fork and then finish the process by hand until you get a compact dough that will rest an hour in the refrigerator before you can be re-worked. At this point roll it out with a rolling pin on a wooden surface – in jargon, pastry – which is generally handed down from generation to generation and which must always be floured before use. The pasta is ready to be machine-driven and thus obtain the preferred thickness and format, which can be thrown into boiling salted water and brought to the table after a few minutes.

How to store it

If you prefer to prepare a little bit stocks, or organize yourself in advance for Christmas, you can follow this process until the last step and, instead of cooking it, put the pasta in freezer on a paper tray covered with flour. After one hour the pasta will be ready to be transferred from the tray to a bag for food to be stored in the freezer for up to a few months, without taking up too much space. If instead it is a matter of a few hours between preparation and cooking, for example, if you wake up at dawn on Christmas morning to be able to prepare everything in time, it will be enough to pay attention to keep the pasta in a quite dry environment to prevent the paste from getting wet, breaking or sticking.

Fresh alternative pastas

As traditions must make everyone happy, here are also recipes and tutorials to prepare fresh pasta in a vegan and gluten-free variant.