I Tried To Make Jamie Oliver’s Two-Ingredient Pasta & It Didn’t Totally Suck

Let’s face it: even those of us who aren’t usually eager cooks have been lured into the kitchen during isolation.

Whether it’s to experiment with a new recipe, turn into an Instagram bread baker, or just simply eat the baked goods your housemates/partner/family are creating, the kitchen is now one of the more exciting places to be in 2020.

I myself have fallen victim to spending more time than usual in the kitchen. It started with hot cross bun hacks, continued with me eating a whole jar of Nutella, and then I had to ban myself after making enough quarantine muesli bars and protein balls that my freezer now longer has room to stock anything else.

So when I got an email from Channel 10 about Jamie Oliver’s show Keep Cooking And Carry On airing on Sunday nights, as well as a recipe for two-ingredient pasta to try out, well it seemed too good to be true.

Naturally, I had to try it out for myself.

Here are a few things to know about this pasta making mission before I get into breaking down Jamie’s recipe for y’all.

1. I have never, not once, made pasta from scratch in my life. It has always seemed too time-consuming to even think about, let alone try. If I’m being 100% honest with you (the Italian side of my family will disown me for saying this) I’ve never been a huge pasta eater as it is.

2. It literally took me a week to find flour to make this. Bloody hell, what are all you people baking out there and how often?!

3. Please be warned that yes, you do need a rolling pin for this, something that I simply did not even factor in until it was close to pasta making time. Luckily I had access to an emergency rolling pin. Don’t ask. Also have you ever tried typing the word rolling pin numerous times? It starts to not look like a real word.. I had to Google it again to make sure I was using the right term.

Anyway.

Here’s what happened when I tried to make Jamie Oliver’s two-ingredient pasta.

While the ingredients list was short, please note the instructions were just as short.

Jamie calls for two large handfuls of flour and some water. He doesn’t specify HOW much water, mind you. That’s up to your judgment! And if you’re like me, a person who has never made pasta in their life, that’s dangerous.

I wasn’t about to just grab a handful of flour straight from the packet because I’m not a psycho and also my hands are rather small. Jamie’s two handfuls would be vastly different from my two handfuls.  I decided I’d use about 1.5 cups of flour and I filled up one cup of water to slowly add in from time to time while mixing the flour until it formed a dough. Note: you definitely won’t need the full cup of water.

You then knead the flour until it’s “smooth and shiny”.

Shiny???? Mine did not look shiny. But it did look smooth enough, so she’ll be right.

The next step is to roll the dough out to “about 2mm thick”.

I would not be able to estimate exactly what that is because that would require using my brain, so I just rolled my dough out onto a flour-dusted surface until it looked… fine. I guess.

After that’s done, “loosely roll it up.”

By this time I was Facetiming my family in Wagga, who were being normal people and ordering in from a local Italian place. “Do you reckon that looks loosely rolled up?” I asked myself, while they watched me, confused as to what isolation had turned me into.

After you’ve loosely rolled it up, you then need to cut it 1/2 a cm thick (lol whatever) and toss it in your hands before cooking.

Here’s what Jamie’s rolled and cut up pasta looked like vs. my homemade attempt while cutting:

Twins!

You then cook the pasta for two minutes in boiling, salted water.

Tbh, I cooked mine longer, not for any other reason other than after two minutes it didn’t look… cooked. Instead, I propped my family on Facetime against the wall while I tried to make garlic bread, keep an eye on the pasta, keep an eye on my pasta sauce, and for some reason keep an eye on the pumpkin soup I had also made (not… for the pasta).

My family slowly slid down the wall as I tried to navigate all of this, before they crashed face down, just like my inner aspirations to become a chef.

Friday’s used to be stressful because I’d have a few glasses of wine and slide into the DMs of someone I probably shouldn’t. Now look where we are.

End result:

If it (vaguely) looks like pasta, and tastes like pasta, it’s bloody pasta, mate. All in all, this was a success. Was it the prettiest spaghetti you’ve ever seen? No. But the recipe didn’t state “Make Jamie’s pretty pasta”. It is just proof you can make pasta with two ingredients.

At the very least my Nonna was proud of me. I think she’d be less proud if she wasn’t viewing a blurry Facetime video of the pasta. If she saw it in person, she’d probably have some things to say, but I might just pivot to gnocchi next time.

Jamie Oliver: I’m ready for your next challenge. Hit me up, I’ve got nothing but time.

Jamie: Keep Cooking And Carry On airs Sunday nights, 7:30 pm on Channel 10.