Pasta

The sauce that I mentioned in the last post made it into Saturday’s dinner with fettuccine. We also had a salad from the head lettuce we are growing in the garden, fortified with farmer’s market arugula, in a vinaigrette of oregano, rosemary, and mustard. Of oregano and rosemary we have a virtually unlimited supply, since it grows very well on the slope of our front yard. In fact, if you know where we live you are welcome to come by and get some.

Since this is a post about fresh pasta, I should probably say something about tools. Here in the Athens kitchen (we are still waiting for Princeton to step up) there are not a lot of fancy gadgets. As you will see in random photographs, the stove has a pretty ordinary ceramic cooktop, the pots and pans are adequate but unremarkable, and the knife selection desultory. I do have a Kitchen Aid, though, which I use a lot for mixing dough. I also got the pasta-making attachments as a Christmas gift. They are just like those models that you bolt onto a table and crank, minus the bolting and cranking. You just open the secret panel on the front of the Kitchen Aid, slide on the roller/cutter, tighten the screw, and you are good to go. Unsurprisingly, this speeds up the making of fresh pasta incredibly. I make it once or twice a week now. In fact, I have stopped buying dried pasta at all. The only exception is that for her school lunch Louise likes to have dried bow-ties (cooked, of course) since they don’t get crushed as easily as fresh, egg-based noodles. At any rate, the pasta-making gear is expensive but greatly appreciated since the quality of the pasta is very high.

Recipes for fresh pasta are infinitely variable. I start with two cups all-purpose flour in the mixing bowl, add one and one-half teaspoons salt plus two eggs, and mix, adding water until you get a dough that will adhere. You have to determine this by hand since the pasta dough doesn’t come together in a ball like a bread dough does, so go easy on the water until you are sure. On the other hand make sure there is enough liquid so that you don’t end up with a crumbly mess.

If you want spinach pasta add chopped cooked spinach before you add any water. Squeeze out as much of the liquid as is practical. Some recipes don’t use eggs at all, substituting a tablespoon of olive oil and using hot water to make the dough easier to handle. Other recipes use additional eggs. You can also substitute semolina flour for part of the all-purpose, yielding a pasta with a different texture.

Once the dough will come together in the bowl, put it on a floured counter, knead it into a roll, then cut into about 6 pieces. If the dough feels sticky at all roll it in flour. Fire up the mixer now and start rolling the pasta at the thickest setting. You will have to roll it through multiple times, folding and re-folding, to get a piece of dough that is more or less uniform and beginning to take on that silky feeling that you are looking for. Repeat with the other pieces, letting the dough rest in between and making it unnecessary to constantly change the settings. When you have done all the pieces at the thickest level change the thickness setting and gradually work you way until you get the thickness you need. You will end up with long strips and nowhere particularly good to put them (see photo).

Let your sheets of pasta dry for a while, but not for too long because they will get brittle. At this point they can be used for lasagna noodles, or cut them with a knife (a pizza cutter also works) and pinch to get farfalle (see photo). Technique leaves something to be desired. No doubt you improve with practice. It is easy to do in principle but kind of a pain to keep the size consistent. So while I think everybody should give fresh pasta a try, the jury is still out on hand-shaping.

If you aren’t making lasagna or hundreds of dough sculptures, you can go on to cut noodles with your machine. If the sheets are still damp you may want to try dusting them with additional flour so the individual noodles don’t stick together. You also may want to cut the sheets into two or three pieces for easier handling. To cut, just feed the sheets through and catch them on the other end—you can put the mixer at full speed for this once you get used to the process. It really makes the job fast. Stray pieces of raw noodle will drop on the floor, inevitably, so you may want to secure the services of a pet to keep the floor clean. Put your cut noodles on a rack to dry, if you have one. I leave them on the counter well floured then just pick them up and shake to get rid of the extra flour before cooking.

Final point—cooking fresh pasta is like cooking dried pasta in that you don’t want to crowd the noodles. Use lots of water, heated to a full boil. Unlike dried pasta, however, fresh is done in 3-4 minutes (a little longer for thicker shapes, folded, or ravioli). Also remember that the pasta continues to cook after it leaves the pot. Choose to err, therefore, on the al dente side of things.