Making fresh pasta is not something you should feel compelled to do unless you enjoy it. While their are certain things in the kitchen where the cost to benefit ratio is so high that even if I don’t particularly feel like doing the work I’ll force my lazy self to because the result is so much better than the purchased equivalent (i.e. stock, pasta is not like that. While it isn’t hard work, it does take a fair amount of time and require a lot of fiddly maneuvering with the delicate noodles. If that doesn’t sound like a swell afternoon to you, I recommend buying some good fresh pasta at the grocer: making it will annoy you and the meal will taste of frustration. That being said I enjoy the process. It’s a kick producing refined and pretty noodles from such rough beginnings.
If you are into trying to making your own pasta, do it in bulk. That way you can enjoy playing with the dough when the whim strikes you, freeze the bulk of it and reap the rewards for weeks. It’s much more fulfilling. I don’t get to uptight about making machine perfect pasta – how will people know it’s homemade and therefore to shower you with adoration? Much better to have a pleasant rough look about it, I think (The Banker would say I’m rationalizing my love of disorder – potatoe, potato).
For the pasta dough I rely on the 100g flour to 1 egg ratio. After kneading until the dough is lovely and supple, feed it through whatever pasta roller you have on hand (I do not recommend rolling by hand unless you are interested in the amount of muscles one’s forearms contains – do so and you’ll be acutely aware of each within an hour) Do roll through each gradient several times (I do three). Dough is not a pushover, it resists manipulation and requires plenty of encouragement. In today’s effort I made ravioli, filled with spiced butternut squash. Simply put, I lay the sheets of rolled noodles on the floured counter, plopped little balls of the filling at 3cm intervals, wet the remaining noodle surface and folded it over to close the envelop. You can get little gadgets to make this ultra uniform, but again that goes against everything I believe in, both in and out of the kitchen.
Freezing is not tricky. Best practice is to lay the ravioli on a floured baking sheet, not touching, and only after the little suckers are completely frozen, transfer the noodles to bags. Spending the time and effort only to have your efforts coagulate into one doughy ball can be the definition of frustration – avoid it. To make table ready drop in salted boiling water for around 5 min, mix with desired sauce and serve.
If you are into trying to making your own pasta, do it in bulk. That way you can enjoy playing with the dough when the whim strikes you, freeze the bulk of it and reap the rewards for weeks. It’s much more fulfilling. I don’t get to uptight about making machine perfect pasta – how will people know it’s homemade and therefore to shower you with adoration? Much better to have a pleasant rough look about it, I think (The Banker would say I’m rationalizing my love of disorder – potatoe, potato).
For the pasta dough I rely on the 100g flour to 1 egg ratio. After kneading until the dough is lovely and supple, feed it through whatever pasta roller you have on hand (I do not recommend rolling by hand unless you are interested in the amount of muscles one’s forearms contains – do so and you’ll be acutely aware of each within an hour) Do roll through each gradient several times (I do three). Dough is not a pushover, it resists manipulation and requires plenty of encouragement. In today’s effort I made ravioli, filled with spiced butternut squash. Simply put, I lay the sheets of rolled noodles on the floured counter, plopped little balls of the filling at 3cm intervals, wet the remaining noodle surface and folded it over to close the envelop. You can get little gadgets to make this ultra uniform, but again that goes against everything I believe in, both in and out of the kitchen.
Freezing is not tricky. Best practice is to lay the ravioli on a floured baking sheet, not touching, and only after the little suckers are completely frozen, transfer the noodles to bags. Spending the time and effort only to have your efforts coagulate into one doughy ball can be the definition of frustration – avoid it. To make table ready drop in salted boiling water for around 5 min, mix with desired sauce and serve.
We love fresh pasta and often make just enough for one dinner. And unlike you, we think homemade pasta is far and away superior to storebought pasta.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for our hand-crank pasta roller!!
We don't weigh the flour though but I'm guessing we must use about the same proportion of flour to eggs. This is how much we use to make pasta for two hogs:
* 1 c semolina flour
* ¼ c unbleached all-purpose flour
* ¼ c whole wheat flour (or unbleached all-purpose flour)
* 2 large eggs
I know what you mean about wanting the cuts to be non-uniform. I think it tastes better that way too.
(We WERE going to make squash ravioli too but the butternut squash we bought is really disappointing - watery and dull tasting. I guess we just had too much rain this summer.)
-Elizabeth