T he texts were coming in thick and fast following our night of rampant pasta making: “Morning, I’ve found a pasta machine on the web for £32, which comes with a ravioli attachment and a dryer stand. Let me know if Boswells can beat that!” one candidate informed me. “I am looking to buy one too. Can’t wait to make more pasta,” came the second response.

Boswells came up trumps actually, their pasta machines featuring in the sale for a mere £21, and were being whipped off the shelves faster than Usain Bolt being chased by a rabid dog.

That’s Mariella Bliss for you — her passion and utter dedication to her craft being an irresistible combination that leaves you desperate to try what you’ve learnt. If only every teacher could inspire such devotion.

But then Mariella is the real deal. The Naples-born Italian food aficionado not only cooks like an angel, but runs Italian food classes ranging from gelati to gnocchi and ravioli from various Oxfordshire venues including Wolvercote’s church hall and her home in Tackley.

Born of her frustration at finding any decent pizza or pasta here, she began instead to teach us how to do it herself, and her classes are a wild success.

As for the ravioli attachment and dryer suggestion Mariella simply threw her hands up in exasperation, shaking her head at our funny English ways. Because Italians don’t worry about things like that. It’s about passion and love, it’s about using the right ingredients and learning your craft, it’s a skill passed down from generation to generation, but once it’s made you can hang pasta on the trees, rafters, coat hangers or the clothes dryer as Mariella does, you don’t need to buy a special gadget.

All of this was explained to us in Mariella’s Oxfordshire kitchen of a Wednesday night as we trooped into her house to be taught the wonders of pasta-making. Because although Jamie has shown us how to do it on TV, and while making pasta is all the rage, it’s harder than it looks. Not that it’s complicated, mind you, but you have to know what you’re doing.

I say this with some experience, having hauled my pasta machine and endless Italian cookery books all the way to Italy last summer, only to spend days cursing in the kitchen while everyone sunbathed outside, and ended up throwing the damn machine away in a sulk.

Which is why I was so delighted to be shown how to do it properly. And there is no one better equipped than Mariella and her fellow Italian pasta guru Sonia Bortoletto to show us how.

There was a lot to get through though, so after an introductory glass of wine accompanied by the astonishingly delicious fried artichoke nibbles served up in little paper cones, and a chat about the different kinds of pasta, we got stuck in.

First up was the pasta itself. Using the right flour (local Wessex pasta and pizza flour, which has a semolina bite to it), we made a well, added the eggs and mixed the dough, the right consistency being tantamount, and then left it to rise.

While that occurred, a mushroom and sherry sauce was concocted as well as the ravioli filling of ricotta with lemon zest, parmesan and basil. Then the pasta rolling began. Sonia showed us how to do it by hand with a very long rolling pin for authenticity more than anything else, but we were offered various machines to test from the electric Kitchen Aid appliance to the hand-turned Kitchen Craft. Different pastas have to be rolled to different thicknesses, ravioli being the thinnest, lasagna the thickest.

We also learnt that the pasta is matched with the sauce and not the other way around, that pasta made with egg needs a strong sauce, anything subtler such as fish needs eggless pasta. Short pasta attracts a pungent sauce, long something more gentle. The Italians don’t use garlic with onion in their cooking, only fish, onion goes with meat, and so on. All fascinating stuff.

Once we’d fed our pasta sheets back through the machines to the required thicknesses we then made a variety of lasagna (officially a feast day Shrove Tuesday dish rather than an everyday staple), spaghetti and ravioli.

The ravioli was the most fiddly, having to dab the filling on to the sheets in the right quantities, neatly and geometrically, and then fold the pasta sheet back on itself, pushing together all the edges, ironing out any air pockets, cutting and then boiling.

Other than that there are no hard and fast rules. How long do the ravioli need? “When they pop up.” Italians cook by instinct rather than instruction and it shows.

The ravioli was absolutely magnificent and needed no sauce at all, it was like eating savoury clouds. The spaghetti with the mushroom sauce was quite delicious, and we tasted and chatted and admired our handy work until we jumped up in horror realising that instead of our 10pm curfew it was now 11.30pm and disappeared into the night, clutching our boxes of home-made pasta.

Mariella just shrugged, as if to say ‘what did you expect?’ When you’re making something as vital as pasta you can’t be watching the clock.

 

Mariella Bliss
01869 331099
mariellabliss.co.uk

 

Mariella Bliss’ next cookery class runs on June 21 featuring vegetable dishes including peperonata, parmigiana, filled courgettes and pesto trapanese. July boasts her tiramisu and pannacotta class, September gnocchi and sauces, October an autumn feast, November nutty favourites and December Christmas specialities. She has also added an extra pasta date of October 4 for any interested parties, and caters for children, private parties and events.
n Prices per class vary from £45 to £55 per adult.