Nettle Pasta Recipe - How to Make Pasta with Nettles | Hank Shaw (2024)

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Course: Pasta

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 8 people

Prep Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 35 minutes minutes

• ▢ 10 ounces all-purpose flour, about 2 heaping cups
• ▢ 4 1/2 ounces blanched nettles or spinach, about a cup

• Depending on how old your nettles are, you will need two or three big tong-fulls of fresh nettles to get your 4 ounces. I say tong-fulls because you do not want to pick up fresh nettles, as they will sting you. Thus the name. Get a huge pot of water boiling and add a handful of salt. Grab the nettles with tongs and put them into the boiling water. Stir around and boil for 1 to 3 minutes, depending on how old they are. Fish them out with a skimmer or the tongs and immediately dump them into a big bowl with ice water in it. Once they are cool, put them in a colander to strain.

• Remove any thick stems. Chop the nettles roughly. Puree the nettles with a little water in a blender. When you are done, add a little water into the bowl of the blender to help clean it out, but save the water -- you might need this "nettle water" if your dough is not moist enough.

• Put the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Add the nettle puree and gradually incorporate it into the flour until you get a shaggy mass. If it's too stiff add a little of the nettle water. Start folding the dough over itself until it comes together, then begin kneading. This is a medium strength dough, so you’ll need to knead for 5 to 8 minutes.

• Cover the dough with a thin film of olive oil and wrap in plastic. Let it sit for an hour.

• Cut off a piece of the dough and roll it out in a pasta machine. How thick? Your choice. But the traditional width for strettine is relatively thick, about a little less than 1/8 inch. This corresponds to No. 5 on my machine, which is an Atlas.

• Once you have your sheet of pasta, you can cut it with the wide tines on your pasta cutter. That’s easy, but the real noodles are a little narrower. To hand cut your noodles, make sure the sheet is supple and cool, not sticky. If it is sticky, dust with a little flour and smooth it over the surface with your hand. Loosely roll the dough sheet up so that the slices you are about to make form long pasta. Using a sharp (it must be sharp, or you will be in trouble!) chef’s knife, cleaver or other large blade, slice the loose roll at intervals somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 inches. Lay the pasta on the counter or board with some flour dusted on them. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

• After every little batch, pick up the previous one that had been drying and give it a slight twist, making it into a loose nest. This makes for easier storage. The strettine will sit like this for up to a day. Boil in lots of salty water until they float, and then for another minute or two.