Oodles of Noodles

Last night we met up with some mates from school and went to Recipease to learn how to make pasta. Now, Recipease is a place where dreams are made. It's one of my most favorite shops here in Brighton. It's not good that it's just up the street from us either. Oh, I do love this store. It's owned by Jamie Oliver. For those who don't know Jamie, he is quite the famous chef here in England. He's pretty famous in the U.S. as well. But this is his store, and he has a restaurant we have yet to go to here in Brighton. Maybe for my b-day.... Some don't like Jamie, but I think he's a nice fella and brilliant in the kitchen, and kind of cute.

The store is really fun to go into. It has a couple of pizza stations where you can just come in and make your own pizza. They have everything ready for you and you just have to assemble it.

It's like a mini Williams Sonoma or Crate and Barrel.

We all have our own cooking stations and the classes are limited to eight people, so it's really a fun, intimate little party!

 Well, lets get started!

They have everything prepped and ready for us.

First, we start by cracking two eggs into 200g flour.

And mix 'er up by incorporating the flour into the eggs.

Then knead and knead (for about 20 minutes) until you get what looks like...

...this!

 Now, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it for about 30 min.

Kneed that dough Ollie and Lotta! Kneed away!

Eric's is done, wrapped and initialed ready to be refrigerated.

After it's been refrigerated, we now roll it thin with this handy pasta machine.

Roll it super thin, as Lotta will demonstrate...

Good job Lotta!

Now, slice it in half...

And make little piles with your filling (in this case it's spinach and rocotta - premade for us by the wonderful staff).

And if you're like Eric you're going to do your own thing and make two rows of ravioli instead of one, like the teacher demonstrated and told us to do.

Yes, the teacher came over and told Eric he shouldn't do that. But Eric showed him and did it anyway. What a rebel.

Ollie is a good student and concentrated so hard. He took this class seriously. He's actually been trained as a chef and owns Moksha, a coffee house/cafe in Brighton that is really tasty and fun to hang out in.

After you get your filling on there you then wet the edges of the pasta just a bit and put the other half sheet of pasta on top, making sure you don't leave any air bubbles.

Then cut them to the shape you want, as Lotta will demonstrate:

Crip the edges with a fork to seal it, make it purdy and so you can get all of the yummy sauce to stay on it.

I made a few tortellinis. Just because - just because I felt like it, okay?

Our instructor is now going to teach us how to make a brown butter sage sauce.

Basically, you take a few tablespoons of butter, melt it and add some sage leaves. Simple. But the smell, oh the delicious aroma of melted butter.

After you get that started plop your pastas in boiling, salted water for just a few minutes.

And plate your delicious creation.

Mmmmm tasty.

Eric didn't quite get the "browned butter" bit, but he made up for it with the pile of parmesan cheese. He likes his cheese.

It was a fun evening with good food and great new friends.