A lovely, stylish, fresh and tasty recipe, with pasta that is amazingly easy to make, and without a pasta machine! You can’t really make much less than this amount of pasta, but it will freeze well

The pasta

200g best quality ‘00’ pasta flour

2 eggs

fine semolina flour

Crunchy topping

60g butter

60g stale good quality bread crumbs e.g. ciabatta or Basic White Yeast Bread

The sauce

300ml double cream

juice and zest of 1 large lemon

1 heaped tbsp each finely chopped fresh curly leaf parsley, and fresh mint leaves

3 tsps chopped fresh oregano

400g French beans, topped but not tailed

Cayenne pepper and Parmesan cheese to serve (optional)

• First make the pasta. Put the '00' flour and egg in a bowl and mix together well until it makes a soft smooth dough; it will take several minutes

• Turn the dough out onto a semolina dusted work surface and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Then knead for 5 minutes until the dough is very smooth, and similar in texture to plasticene. Cover the ball of dough with cling film and allow to rest for 30 minutes in the fridge

• Meanwhile, make the crunchy topping by melting the butter in a medium sized saucepan and frying the breadcrumbs for 2 to 3 minutes. Make sure they don’t burn. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside

• Blanch the French beans by bringing water to the boil in a large pan, and cooking them for a minute once the water has returned to a rolling boiling. Using a slotted spoon, remove the beans and rinse in cold water. Set aside, but keep the boiling water in the pan for the pasta

• To make the sauce, combine the cream, lemon, lemon zest and herbs in a large bowl. Add the French beans. Set aside

• The final stage:- Lightly dust your worktop with semolina flour. Divide the pasta dough into 6 balls, and roll each one out until it is wafer thin (1mm). Cut into ‘rags’ approximately 7 x 10 cm, trying to keep them roughly the same size so that they cook evenly

• Return the water in which you blanched the beans to the boil, adding a little salt; the pan should be fairly full of water. Add the pasta rags and return to the boil. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes depending on the thickness of the pasta, and how you like it cooked. Remove with a slotted spoon or tongs rather than using a colander. Add to the sauce and beans

• Serve sprinkled with the crunchy bread crumb topping and, if you fancy, a sprinkle of grated parmesan and cayenne pepper