Fresh Homemade Spaghetti with Bolognese Sauce (using KitchenAid pasta attachment)

My boyfriend bought me a KitchenAid last year (in pink! I was over the moon) and this year (as per my suggestion) bought me the pasta attachment for it. I just used it for the first time and was almost bouncing round the kitchen with delight. It rolls the pasta so thin! Then it slices it into spaghetti strands! Which is kind of obvious but when you see it happening for the first time it's really cool. The KitchenAid does all the hard work for you and turns out perfectly and it's actually really fun to watch it all happen. I can see lots of pasta in our future.

First you need to make your pasta dough. I didn't realise there was a recipe leaflet included with the KitchenAid spaghetti attachment so I searched for a recipe online. I used this recipe from All Recipes, though I have since seen other recipes that use different quantities of the ingredients. Also, I was a bit worried that I couldn't get hold of 00 flour, which is usually used in making pasta; it's on my list for my next big shop but in the meantime I had to use plain. But the recipe I used didn't specify 00 flour anyway so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

To serve 6 - the recipe serves 8 but I'm not so sure - you need:
450g strong plain flour
pinch of salt
4 eggs
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil


Make a well in the flour, add the salt and mix in the eggs and oil. I decided to do this in my KitchenAid, though I started off using the dough hook (pictured) then found it was easier with the normal mixing blade.

When you have a ball of dough you need to knead it for about ten minutes (or as long as you can bear!). It ought to look rather smoother than this.

Here's the KitchenAid spaghetti attachment, it comes with three metal attachments - one to roll the pasta, one to make spaghetti and one to make fettucine.

It was easy to set up - simply unscrew the small round disc on the front of the KitchenAid and screw in the pasta attachment. Then when you turn the KitchenAid on, the rollers on the attachment start moving, and you can vary the speed as you would with the normal mixer.

Break the ball of dough into three pieces and flatten one piece. Put the rollers on their widest setting (1) then feed the dough through - it will be rolled out and get longer and flatter.

Change the setting to 2 and repeat - the dough will get longer and flatter

And one last time on setting 3

Here are the pieces of pasta - I had to cut each strip in half as I didn't have enough room on the worktop.

Change the KitchenAid attachment to the spaghetti cutter and feed each piece of pasta through. In a matter of seconds you'll have spaghetti!

I ended up with a large bowlful of pasta - probably enough for 6 people

You can dry the pasta to use later, in which case you need to separate the strands and hang them apparently, or you can cook it right away. As I wasn't sure how long this would take I made the pasta about an hour and a half before dinner, and made the mistake of leaving it in the bowl, so the strands did clump together quite a bit.

Still, it was great to be eating fresh pasta that I had made myself - though I would like to use 00 flour if I can get hold of it next time.

I also received the KitchenAid Recipe Collection for my birthday last year, from my boyfriend's brother and his wife as they knew I was getting the KitchenAid. It has several recipes with pasta and I used the classic bolognese sauce recipe from the book though I adapted it to leave out the chopped carrot and celery, as I knew my boyfriend wouldn't eat it.

You need:
1 tbsp olive oil
half an onion, finely chopped
minced beef for two people -I freeze two or three portions when I buy a pack so can't give an exact quantity
1 clove garlic
400g tin of tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
1/2 cup milk

Chop the onion and crush the garlic and fry over a medium heat

Add the mince and fry until browned

Add the white wine and milk and cook for about 10 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated

Add the tin of tomatoes and simmer over a low heat for about half an hour and season to taste.

I was so excited telling my boyfriend about the spaghetti attachment and serving the pasta I had made that I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish! You can probably imagine what spaghetti bolognese looks like though :-) 

This is only the second time I've ever made fresh pasta; the first time was several years ago at a corporate entertainment cookery class where I had a lot of help, so I was really pleased with this and am already looking forward to making it again.

I'm sending this to Pasta Please, a monthly blogging challenge guest hosted this month by Briciole on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, as their challenge this month is to make your own fresh pasta.

I'm also sending this to Chris at Cooking Around The World for his monthly geographical challenge; this month he has chosen Italy. What's more Italian than spaghetti bolognese?