Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Pasta Attempt #1 Pictures

Picture above is of the uncooked pasta (also one of the pasta dough balls in the back). Picture below is of the finished meal. I just marinated the meat with some store bought marinade and cooked it.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Pasta Attempt #1

So I have been food blog stalking for awhile now, and I have to tell you that I love reading how people have adapted recipes and daunting feats they have tried and share their knowledge with others. Pasta is one of those daunting feats for me. I have seen many different people's recipes, but the one I finally decided to try after I got some KitchenAid Pasta making attachments was a basic pasta recipe on pg. 376 of Cooking by James Peterson (which is an amazing cookbook with loads of pictures and instruction on basic cooking techniques for everything) and a mushroom cream sauce from the same cookbook. I am having trouble with uploading pictures, so I will add the ones for this into the blog itself.

Here is the recipe for "Fresh Egg Pasta Noodles" taken from Cooking by Peterson
6 large eggs, or as needed
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

To make dough (by hand):
1. Form the flour into a well and break the eggs in the center. Add some olive oil.
2. Stir in eggs with fingers slowly (don't let eggs break through the wall).
3. Continue until eggs are integrated and dough starts to form.
4. Use a pastry scraper to pull up the edges of the dough from the counter.
5. If dough is still flour-y then add some more egg (egg yolk or whole egg).
6. Continue to work the dough until it comes together into a ball.

To roll out dough:
1. Split up into 4 sections and flatten it out a bit before running it through the pasta roller attachment.
2. Start out at the widest setting (1 on the KitchenAid rollers) and pass it through the roller.
3. Fold over and run it through again.
4. Repeat until the dough has the feel of "suede".
5. Then once the dough feels right, reduce the width of the rollers (either by one or two levels) and run through each level once until you get to about level 6 (out of 8).

Then I ran it through the linguine cutter attachment. When I did think I had some really really long pasta sheets. I just sent it through the cutter as is. Next time I repeat this I think I would cut the sheets into smaller length before cutting it because it will be hard to cut shorter later.

For the pasta sauce I used the "Mushrooms Tartufati" sauce from page 383 of Cooking by Peterson mainly because I had some cheese and heavy cream left over from another meal. I must admit I am not a huge fan of this sauce but I am not partial to cream based pasta sauces. I just had some heavy cream that needed using. (but if you like cream sauces I am sure this one is great :)

Mushroom Tartufati sauce from Cooking:
1 pound cultivated mushrooms, preferably cremini (I am slightly ashamed to say I used canned)
3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
salt
pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Slice mushrooms paper thin (or just use what you have). Saute mushrooms in the butter or oil. Season with salt and peeper, pour in cream, and simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes, or until slightly thickened.

Cook fresh pasta in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes. Pour sauce over noodles and toss to mix up sauce. Cover with the cheese.