I made pasta!
We've had a pasta maker for a while now, but it's largely Judson's toy. He seems to use it to make fresh pasta once a week or so.
But I usually get home too late to want to make pasta, and frankly, the whole process seems especially difficult. I never trust cooking advice in which everyone claims that something is actually very easy. Alton Brown tried to tell us that souffles are easy. Gordon Ramsay's team still bakes a test souffle every time one is ordered at one of his restaurants. (Souffles are actually pretty easy, but it is kind of tough to tell when they're done...)
At any rate, I decided to give it a try this week, serving up pasta with winter squash and sage.
I decided to try out the classic well method. So I measured out 8 oz of unbleached flour, put it in the middle of a cutting board, made a well, and cracked a couple of eggs into it. With the addition of the second egg (out of three), it was pretty clear that I had not made a deep enough well. I decided to try to start pulling the dough together before adding the third egg and started whisking the two eggs in my well with a fork. Then my well broke, and egg started running everywhere. It was like an elementary school volcano project, except stickier and more likely to make people sick.
This wasn't a great start, but I was able to pull it all together, and I ended up with a very nice, smooth but elastic dough. I quartered the dough and wrapped each quarter in plastic wrap to let it rest for half an hour or so. During this time, I did some dishes, got the squash ready, and put salted water on to boil.
After the dough had rested, I ran it through the pasta machine, starting with the biggest setting (7) until it was a thickness 2 (which seems to be about linguine thickness). Then I folded it up, cut it into noodles by hand, and cooked it. Fortunately for everyone, Judson had wandered downstairs to see if I needed help as I was rolling out the dough, and he ended up cooking the squash and sage.
Dinner was delicious, and making the noodles was pretty easy in the end. I'd just try the well method inside a bowl instead of on a cutting board.
But I usually get home too late to want to make pasta, and frankly, the whole process seems especially difficult. I never trust cooking advice in which everyone claims that something is actually very easy. Alton Brown tried to tell us that souffles are easy. Gordon Ramsay's team still bakes a test souffle every time one is ordered at one of his restaurants. (Souffles are actually pretty easy, but it is kind of tough to tell when they're done...)
At any rate, I decided to give it a try this week, serving up pasta with winter squash and sage.
I decided to try out the classic well method. So I measured out 8 oz of unbleached flour, put it in the middle of a cutting board, made a well, and cracked a couple of eggs into it. With the addition of the second egg (out of three), it was pretty clear that I had not made a deep enough well. I decided to try to start pulling the dough together before adding the third egg and started whisking the two eggs in my well with a fork. Then my well broke, and egg started running everywhere. It was like an elementary school volcano project, except stickier and more likely to make people sick.
This wasn't a great start, but I was able to pull it all together, and I ended up with a very nice, smooth but elastic dough. I quartered the dough and wrapped each quarter in plastic wrap to let it rest for half an hour or so. During this time, I did some dishes, got the squash ready, and put salted water on to boil.
After the dough had rested, I ran it through the pasta machine, starting with the biggest setting (7) until it was a thickness 2 (which seems to be about linguine thickness). Then I folded it up, cut it into noodles by hand, and cooked it. Fortunately for everyone, Judson had wandered downstairs to see if I needed help as I was rolling out the dough, and he ended up cooking the squash and sage.
Dinner was delicious, and making the noodles was pretty easy in the end. I'd just try the well method inside a bowl instead of on a cutting board.
posted by megan at
11:01 PM
1 Comments:
Wish I had a video camera...the world's funniest home movies comes to mind! Way to go!!
By
Lynn Thompson, at 4:17 PM
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