Farfalle

You may know them as bow-ties, but the name farfalle directly translates to butterflies.

One of the most recognizable of all short-cut pastas, farfalle can be made in a variety of sizes. They can have slight variations in design and name depending on where you are. Sometimes, they will even have flat edges all the way around, instead of the iconic fluted sides.

According to the Encyclopedia of Pasta, farfalle are made with eggs and soft-wheat flour in the home, but are generally durum wheat (and either eggs or water) when factory made. I think you can make them either way when doing them by hand, or even with a mix of both flours - it all depends on how rich and toothsome you prefer your farfalle to be. But, this time around, I made my farfalle using a simple egg dough.

To make them: Roll out your pasta dough to a relatively thin setting - I did 1mm on my hand-crank pasta machine, but probably would have done one notch thinner if I were planning to make smaller ones to serve in a broth instead of a sauce.

Use both flat and fluted pasta cutters to create rectangles that are roughly 4cm tall and 6-7cm long. Use the fluted roller on the outer edges, and the flat roller on for the tops and bottoms.

• Take one rectangle, and hold it with the fluted edges pointing up.

• Gently push the center of the dough down, to crease the dough in half. Pull the long edges slightly up towards you.

• Taking these two long edges, fold again, this time pushing them down. Press to seal the dough together.