Until yesterday I had never made my own pasta from scratch. Why make it when you can get a packet from the supermarket for $1? But with Masterchef being on and watching the contestants make their own pasta I just couldn’t help myself. So, on Saturday we went out and purchased a pasta maker (probably not necessary at all as a rolling pin usually can do the trick). I got all giddy with excitement at the shop that I think they may have overcharged me by $10.
Sunday night dinner – home made fettucini with garlic, chili, sun dried tomatoes and gorgonzola.
Having never made pasta before I had no idea of the consistency or the texture. Each step was by guess and feel. I checked out half a dozen recipe books and each one had a different pasta recipe from the other. Talk about confusing. So, what did I use?
600g flour
4 eggs (go the protein packed pasta- although some people don’t add any eggs, apparently the more eggs the harder the pasta will be)
30ml oil (I used macadamia oil as we ran out of olive oil and I hadn’t noticed)
50-100ml water (it said eight tablespoons in one so I guestimated)
I kneaded the flour, eggs, oil and water, and kneaded some more. I tell you, kneading is hard. Triceps, biceps, forearms, abs and legs are all getting worked in the kneading process. Hard yacker if you have to do it for a living or catering for 50 odd guests. I wonder if the Italians always make their own pasta or whether they just pop into the supermarket to buy the prepackaged stuff?
After kneading the dough to the smooth consistency that it should be, I let it sit under a cloth for ten to twenty minutes. A few of the recipes didn’t require any time under the cloth while others claiming anywhere between 40 minutes and a few hours. Yeah right, I’m not waiting that long for my dough to be ready for pasta making. Patience is definitely not one of my virtues.
Meanwhile Jarek set up the pasta maker, attaching it to the bench. We weren’t sure on the thickness we wanted so again with just guessed and hoped for the best.
I grabbed the dough, separated it into two and used the rolling pin to make it flat and long. Then it went through the roller in the pasta maker before being put through the cutting process and what was supposed to be fettucini. In the before cooking stages it didn’t really resembled fettucini as much as it should so I’m not sure how I thought it would be fettucini after it was cooked. First timer, that I am.
While the water was waiting to boil, I heated a fry pan, added a lot of macadamia oil, chopped up garlic and chili and added it in. I got Jarek to grab some herbs from the garden (whatever he could find), and chop them up for me finally before adding to the pan. Finally, I cut up some sun-dried tomatoes (jar version but any sun-dried tomatoes can be used) and added them to the pan.
The strips of dough went into the water. Usually fresh pasta doesn’t need as much time as the stuff from the shop, however, in this case it did need about 10 minutes in the boiling pot. The pasta turned out thick which meant longer cooking time. Our fettucini were more like obese fettucini.
Once drained I returned the pasta to the pot, mixed it up with the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, herbs and chilies. The portion I made could easily feed five or six hungry people. I added a bit of gorgonzola on top, just a little as it’s a very strong cheese and one that not everyone might like. Then to finish it off I grated some parmesan. Although I think a green leaf would have looked nice at the top, or even a sprinkling of some mixed herbs or cracked pepper (I have to remember that for next time).
Although my pasta didn’t turn into the fettucini I was aiming for (next time the dough once rolled out needs to be much much thinner), the taste wasn’t too bad. It was definitely fresher than the prepackaged pasta we always buy.
Will we be making all our pasta from scratch from now on? Umm, probably not. It’s hard work and time consuming. But I will definitely be trying to perfect my fettucini, maybe even giving spaghetti and ravioli a go too. Hopefully, the pasta maker will be a popular tool in our kitchen for special occasions and sometimes just because we feel like it.
Have you ever made your own pasta?
