HOMEMADE PASTA THOUGHTS

Well, I finally tried to make my own pasta, pappardelle to be exact. First, what I discovered is that there are multiple recipes for pasta ranging from simple flour and eggs to flour, eggs, milk, olive oil, salt, and each with different ratios. And, then, of course if you want flavors (spinach, garlic, etc.) you have to adjust the ratios BECAUSE, the secret to great pasta is the texture and, in my book, thinner pasta.

Now, the solution to this is to just go out to eat at Osteria in Palo Alto (sorry no web link...they are so well known they have no website) who makes their own pasta and order the Pappardelle with Bolognese Ragu. Their pasta is perfectly prepared and my model for great pasta. OR, get invited to friends who make their own fabulous pasta for dinner. My next best option is to convince Don to teach me how he makes his pasta, which he most kindly did.

So my first attempt used Don’s pasta recipe. Three ingredients, flour, eggs and a little salt and a tiny bit of cooked spinach. I weighed the flour because Don and most of the recipes I looked at recommended this but you also know that every egg is not alike, even if they are labeled “large,” AND the temperature of the day apparently makes a big difference. It seemed like a recipe for guaranteed failure.

I made the well in the flour, popped in the eggs in the middle and using a fork, blended the flour into the eggs very gradually. Then I kneaded the dough for 20 minutes and then added another 10 minutes because one of the recipes said that you can’t over-knead the dough and more is better.

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes..this was the easy part.

I have an Atlas hand crank pasta machine that I bought over 20 years ago and never even taken out of the box. I set it up on my kitchen table and after dividing the dough into the six logs, starting rolling it through the machine at setting #1. I folded the dough into thirds and rolled it through again. I did this 3 times for setting #1 and #2. Then I started rolling it through the successive numbers, UNTIL I got to setting #6 and the dough fell apart and stuck to the rollers. Okay, so I’m stuck with non-paper thin pasta...
But halfway through my 6 logs, I discovered that if I take the dough to #5 and then fold it up and run it through the #1-5 setting again, once for each setting, I got really long and really thin pasta!! Eureka!

Mistakes I made:
1. I did not let the sheets of pasta dry enough before cutting them
2. I forgot to sprinkle corn meal over my cookie sheets before piling the cut pasta ribbons on them. That helps to keep the pasta dry so they don’t stick together before I boil them. I had to throw away the pasta that stuck to itself because I couldn’t get them apart again. . .sigh.

I made a Lamb Ragú for the pasta and for the few ribbons that didn’t stick together and ended up being eatable, the pasta was divine!

Is it worth all the trouble? I am not sure. Counting the time it took to make the ragu, I spent 3 hours and needed Bill’s help to pull the pasta from the machine so the sheet wouldn’t stick to itself. We could drive to Osteria and have dinner in that amount of time AND, no clean up.

I may try Thomas Keller’s recipe before I give this up. Another cooking friend told me that this is the best pasta he’s ever made and you know how I love Keller’s cookbooks!

My next project is to make my own doughnut recipe. I am thinking it will be a cross between a popover, beignet and doughnut. Commercial doughnuts are too heavy, IMHO, anyway. So for our next cookbook dinner, that’s what I’m going to create….or at least try to create. It’s probably going to take a lot of trials, and errors and a big mess in our kitchen and I’ll have to exercise twice a long every day to counter the calories!

Cook on!