It should be like pinching the bottom of a baby, although I'm not sure you can say that nowadays! When the dough is at the right consistency wrap it in some plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 15 minutes. If you have a machine to flatten the pasta, use the widest aperture and press the dough through the rolls a few times, then reduce the width between the rolls more and more until you obtain a very thin sheet of pasta.

After each pass of the pasta through the machine lightly dust each sheet with flour. Otherwise do it with a rolling pin, taking a bit of dough at a time and always putting a bit of flour underneath so it doesn't stick.

The thickness depends on what type of pasta you want to make. For tagliolini, for example, the sheet should be 1.5 mm. A pasta machine is very simple to use although you may need two pairs of hands to start with, one pair to pass the pasta through the machine and another pair to catch it at the other! I promise it does get easier with practise.

Next you have to cut the pasta, and if you don't have a machine to cut it, you can do it by hand. Using a little flour, roll up the pasta and, with a knife, cut it into very small rolls. Undo the rolls and spread them on a clean cloth, again using a little flour. After the pasta has been cut to size leave it to dry for a couple of hours, making sure you hang the pasta in a way that it won't stick together as it dries.

Fresh homemade pasta will cook in about a minute and a half; dried pasta will take longer. It's very easy. Use 1 litre of water per 100g of pasta - any less water and you'll get a concentration of starch, which makes it taste yucky! Salt the boiling water before the pasta goes in, at a ratio of 10g of salt per litre, as an alternative to adding salt you can add a chicken stock cube to the boiling water to add an added flavour to your pasta. Don't add oil unless you're making big sheets for lasagne.

Ten seconds after you add the pasta, stir it with a fork so it won't stick. To test if it's ready, take a string and eat it, and if it's nicely al dente, take it away. If it needs just a little more cooking, take it off the heat and leave it in the hot water for about a minute. Drain it, but never wash the pasta under cold water or you'll wash away all the goodies. Anybody can cook pasta - it's not difficult.