Latest features Making pasta with Alice

Alice's prawn and basil ravioli recipe

Date Published:

19/02/2008

Cooking with kids doesn't have to be all fairy cakes and chocolate rice krispies. Catherine De Abaitua discovers that, with the right tools, pasta making lends itself to little nimble fingers

I have made many things in the kitchen with my daughter, Alice, who is six. Ordinarily, we would play to her sweet tooth, baking cookies, muffins or something of that ilk. She is encouraged to make up her own recipes and is involved with the big decisions like 'what fruit shall we put in the muffins?' and 'how shall we decorate the fairy cakes?' It makes cooking more fun and encourages her to think about flavour. Thankfully she is past trying to lick all the food whilst we are making it. I am squeamish about other people's slobber, even that of my own children. Refraining from licking the bowl is a good lesson in kitchen hygiene too.

Pasta machine play

The pasta machine was a present (aren't they all?), but unlike some kitchen gadgets it is fun to get out. We decided to make ravioli and Alice chose prawns and basil for the filling.

She soon got the hang of the pasta machine and was batting me off as she wound the dough through the rollers, reducing the setting each time to produce steadily thinner sheets of pasta. With the left-over dough, she even hand-cut some tagliatelle for baby brother's lunch the next day.

I consulted various cookbooks for making your own pasta, and recommend you do the same. The principle is to pass the pasta through the machine until it is thin enough, but not so thin it will break when making the ravioli.

Alice's prawn and basil ravioli recipe