Perfect pasta: A lesson in food from Jamie’s mentor

I pick up some tricks of the trade from Italian master Gennaro Contaldo at the Guildford branch of the restaurant chain he set up with his protégé, Jamie Oliver. 

 Gennaro shows me how to make the perfect pasta - photos by Steve Porter

Whether you love or loathe him, there’s no denying that Jamie Oliver is passionate about food, particularly the Italian variety.

That’s one of the many attributes he no doubt picked up from his mentor, Gennaro Contaldo, who he first met while working as a pastry chef at the Neal Street Restaurant in London.

“Jamie has always cooked Italian and I am all about Italian, so when he worked with me at Neal Street I would show him whatever I could show to him,” Gennaro said of his protégé as he welcomed me
into Jamie’s Italian restaurant at the bottom of Guildford High Street.

Although cheeky celebrity chef Jamie is the face of the restaurant chain, which aims to make good Italian cuisine accessible to everyone, not many people know Gennaro is very much a driving force behind
the business, developing menus and training the chefs.

“When Jamie first came to me and said he wanted to open not only one but two, three, in fact many restaurants all over the country I told him I didn’t understand why he wanted to do it - he had put so much time, energy and money into Fifteen and almost went bankrupt.

“However, he managed to talk me round and now I am working in every single restaurant. “It was always his dream to give something back and a few years ago it became mine,” said the 63-year-old, who presents
the Two Greedy Italians series of television programmes with his close friend and mentor, Antonio Carluccio.

Gennaro, who grew up on Italy’s Amalfi coast but moved to the UK in the 1960s, truly believes that food helps the soul and that cooking as a family can help create strong bonds.

And the chef was particularly shocked when I told him I had never made fresh pasta before, telling me that watching his mother and aunty make fresh pasta as a child was one of the things that started his love affair with food.

“Making your own pasta is something everyone can do,” the father of six said. “In my family it was my
mamma who used to do it but anyone can, your mother, husband, boyfriend, the children. People say they have no time but it is so quick, it takes about five minutes.”

To feed about four people, you need 200g of 00 flour and two eggs, he told me. Mix together with a bit of salt and pepper and then need into a dough. Wrap this in cling film and leave for 30 minutes and then you are ready to create whatever type of pasta you want.

Genarro suggests investing in a pasta machine to roll out the pasta but you can use a rolling pin - it will just take a lot longer. Once rolled thin enough (you should be able to lift the rolled out dough by blowing underneath it) you can cut into shapes to make the different types of pasta you want, such as tagliatelle (strips) farfalle (bows) maltagliati (off cuts) or fill with something for ravioli.

“Making ravioli is a great way of using up your leftovers,” Gennaro said. “In Italy we use lots of ravioli for this reason. You make roast beef, what do you do with the leftovers? You make some ravioli. You can use
anything vegetables, spinach, salami.”

For our ravioli we used Buffalo ricotta, nutmeg and lemon juice. Gennaro the showed me how to create a variety of different ravioli styles, although I’m sure mine didn’t look like they were supposed to.

“That is what is good about it though, it doesn't really matter what it looks like, it makes it rustic and unique. The rougher it is the more it will soak up the sauce,” Gennaro said, perhaps trying to make me feel better.

A move from the table to the kitchen and an infusion of a few additional simple ingredients such as olive oil, basil, sage, tomatoes mussels and pumpkin and what started out as just 200g or flour and two eggs had become four completely different pasta dishes.

“It’s simplicity”, Gennaro added. “Italian cuisine is all about that. You open the fridge, you see what’s there and you use it. If you use what is in season, it’s going to taste great.”

• Let’s Cook Italian by Gennaro Contaldo is published by Pavilion Books RRP £20.

This article first appeared in the Surrey Advertiser on 21 May, 2012