So finally after many recipes, the italian's decided to share their deepest secrets: homemade pasta!
This, however, is not the typical "fresh-pasta recipe" you can find online ( otherwise why are you here with us? Could have just googled it... but no you know we do it quicker better don't you?)
This recipe comes from the idea of mixing two great features of the pasta:
1) having always something in the cupboard to cook a quick meal
2) Having the taste and deliciousness of fresh pasta
So we are about to do some magic here! We are going to make some fresh pasta, specifically tagliatelle, that will last long in your cupboards with no need to be frozen or be eaten immediately.
We are going to make it eggs-free ( oh yeah!) and needing no special treats (just some real italian love!)
Making this pasta will save you time, money and more over (the things that matter the most to me right now) the world! Just think of all that amount of plastic packaging that we produce just by buying pasta from the shops!
So...are you ready to fly to Italy with me?
Doses for 1 kg of pasta
(serving at least 10 portions)
INGREDIENTS
- 800 g semolina flour ( ideal) or strong white flour
- flour to manipulate dough and pasta (100-150 g might be necessary)
- 500 mls of hot water ( not boiling)
- 15g salt
-optional ( two teaspoon of turmeric)
EQUIPMENTS
- Pasta machine ( or rolling pin )
- Kitchen robot ( or strong hands)
- stendipasta ( pasta drying- rack or oven tray)
PROCEDURE to make the pasta
1)Let's start by putting all the flour in the kitchen robot or in a bowl and add all the salt. Mix well.
2) Heat up some water, then add it to the flour.
If you are using semolina, the dough is already yello, if not it will be quite pale.
therefore (Optionally) you can add two teaspoons of turmeric powder to the hot water (to make it more yellow, to resemble the colour of the typical fresh pasta!)
3) Mix well with the robot for about 5-6 minutes until all the flour is absorbed by the dough and the dough is smooth and not too sticky
( if the dough stick to the bowl and remain stick to the bottom of the bowl and robot arm, continue mixing and eventually add a tiny bit of flour )
4) Take the dough out of the robot, put it on a floured surface and mix it by hand a couple of times. Make a bown and cut it in small pieces approximately 7-10 pieces.
5) cover the dough with some clincing film while you are not using it.
6) Take one of the small sliced dough, make it as flat as possible (either using a rolling pin or press it by hand) , cover with flour top and bottom, then pass it in in one of the bigger gear of the pasta-machine (gear 1).
7) Put flour on the pasta sheet just rolled in the machine ( top and bottom again), then do it again with the same gear.
8) If the pasta sheet is smooth you can downsize the machine gear ( gear 2 ) and continue like that downsizing at every roll until you reach the thickness of approximately 2 mm
9) If the pasta sheets appear not smooth ( see following NB and picture for troubleshooting the pasta sheet ), fold the sheet it half, cover with geneour flour then roll it again with the same gear size..
N.B: The pasta sheet can be too"sticky" or wet. The more sticky it appear at this stage, the more flour we need to add at every next step as it should become as dry as possible. The picture below shows what will happen to a pasta sheet that has just been passed through the machine at the biggest gear but was too wet. The sheet breaks down and it is not smooth. This is not ok, the sheet should come out of the machine as smooth as possible, should have the same appearance that a lasagna sheet bought from the shops looks like, just to be clear).
So for this ugly pasta sheet we just need to
a) cover with flour
b) fold it in half and covered with more flour (top and bottom)
c) Pass it through the machine again.
This same ugly sheet will come out smooth and perfect as in the following picture :)
after =)
Once the pasta sheet seems smooth enough, move the machine gear to a smaller size (gear 2, then 3 then 4....)
keep covering every pasta sheet with enough flour before every roll in the pasta machine.
N.B.2.: As we are making tagliatelle the lasagna sheet length will be either the total length of the tagliatelle ( if we are drying it with the oven method ) or half of it ( in case you will hang it in half on the pasta rack ). You will better understand this later in the recipe.
So I make sheets of approximately 30 cm (so my tagliatelle will be approximately 15-18 cm long when i hang them) and I make them long 15-20 cm when I dry the pasta in the oven.
This suits me because this is the shape of my food containers where I store my pasta. Also is perfect for the dimension of my pasta rack .
Of course if you have bigger pasta containers or you are not making tagliatelle but different pasta shapes, you do not have to worry about the length of the pasta sheet at this point.
If the sheet is too long you can cut it in half, if it is too small, add a bit of pasta from one of the other dough, re-knead it and re-do the pasta sheet.
6) You are now ready to create tagliatelle!
As I said I will be making tagliatelle as is the quickest and easiest to make with my pasta machine. You just need to fit the right gear on and put you sheet through ( make sure to cover the sheet with enough flour before doing that)
7) Put the pasta to dry following the procedure below. Then continue with all the other pasta dough. You can alternatively make all the pasta sheets with all the pasta dough all together and then cut them at the end.
The only issue with doing this is space. If you are piling sheets onto sheets, the pasta needs to be very dry otherwise they will stick together and you will have to do it all over again!
( Unless you have a kitchen big enough to be able to make all the sheets without having to pile them.. in that case I am sure you are rich enough to ask someone else to do the pasta for you..like me... hire me!)
Now that we made our tagliatelle ets dry them using one of the two following methods:
A) hang it on the pasta dry- rack
B) dry it in a oven tray
Let's explore it one at the time.
PROCEDURE to dry the tagliatelle with the stendipasta
1) once cut the pasta sheet in tagliatelle, hang the pasta on the pasta dry rack in half and cover with extra flour. Leave it hanged for minimum 24h ( 24 to 72h is ideal). When the pasta is dry enough it will break down from the rack and fall dow so from 1 tagliatella length ( 30 cm) you will obtain two tagliatelle (15 cm each).
PROCEDURE to dry the tagliatelle in the oven
1) Lye the tagliatelle on a oven try covered with baking paper or kitchen roll and abundant flour.
2) cover the pasta with extra flour ( not too much )
3) Turn on the oven light and the oven fan ( do not turn on the temperature of the oven or you will make bread sticks instead of dry pasta!!)
4) leave it in the oven for approximately two hours then turn the tagliatelle on the other side ( the bottom part will be still humid while the top part will result already dry)
5) leave it for a minimum of 4 hours but if you have more time and dedication, you can keep turning the tagliatelle every hour to make sure they are properly dry.
The pasta is now ready to go into the containers and can stay up to a month in a dry and dark place ( away from heat and humidity ).
This is my pasta!
And this is with some fresh tomato sauce and fresh basil ( nothing else needed!)
Let me know how it is yours!!
SUGGESTIONS
-You can eat the pasta right away after you made it. Just make sure to cover it with loads of flour while you are preparing the boiling water as it will easily stick together. Cooking time for the pasta ( if you have not dry it ) is 2-3 minutes only so in this case make sure to prepare your sauce before!
- Cooking time for the dry pasta is approximately 5-6 minutes, a bit less then common supermarket pasta.
- You can make with this dough any pasta shape if you have the right struments ( see link belows for some ideas) Then put the pasta to dry in a oven tray!
( check these youtube videos for more shapes!)
enjoy!!!
Comments