mulberryshoots

So my ankle is feeling pretty good after day surgery on Tuesday. I’m been able to get around with a slight bit of weight bearing which helps enormously in getting around.

It’s a cool summer morning so I thought I’d take this quiet time while G. is out tuning pianos at one of the colleges to unpack the Philips electric pasta machine and try it out. In the intervening time, I’ve been reading two fabulous cookbooks on homemade pasta with incredibly delicious sounding recipes with simple ingredients: “Flour + Water: Pasta” and “Mastering Pasta,” both of which I recommend if for the inspiring photos within alone.

I’ll also summarize what I’ve gleaned for myself after watching YouTube videos of how to use the machine and from reading other blogs about making pasta at home:

a.  In the flour measuring cup, I’m using half “OO” flour and half “Semolina” flours. I ordered these online from Amazon earlier in the week and they arrived yesterday. Used 1 cup of mixed flours.

“OO” and “Semolina” flours

b. In the liquid measuring cup, I’m using three egg yolks stirred in bottled water added halfway up the cup with a teaspoon of olive oil.

c. I rinsed out the insides of the machine and turned it on; then added flours as it started to rotate and gradually added half cup of egg yolk/water liquid. It ran for three minutes without the mixture looking like a dough.

the flours, egg yolks, water and olive oil mixing in the machine

d. On the fourth minute, the pasta started to extrude through the lasagna plate that I had attached to the machine. As it came out, I cut it off after about 5-7 inches and laid it curled up on a plate.

lasagna noodles extruded from machine . . .

e. When all the lasagna noodles were extruded, I turned the machine off and hand cut the noodles into pappardalle width noodles; then let them rest. After a half an hour, I might take a rolling pin and roll the noodles out a little thinner. (I looked for my old fashioned pie crust roller to cut the edges but couldn’t find it.)

handcut noodles “resting” . . .

Of course, the proof of the pudding (or the pasta) is in the cooking and eating of it! I will wait and see if rolling the noodles thinner with a rolling pin is in the cards, and then store them until we cook them up for our first dish – maybe tomorrow when our neighbor joins us for supper after taking her medical boards.

I thought maybe a saute of fresh scallions, mushrooms and baby spinach with a little freshly grated parmesan might be worth trying. Stay tuned for follow-up photos! One recipe of these wide noodles with a veal ragu looked really good too.

By the way, cleanup of this machine takes some effort as I did it by hand rather than putting the parts in the dishwasher. I’ll probably make a double batch of noodles next time around and freeze extra batches to make the whole production worthwhile!

Spinach fettucine and ramen noodles are next on the list!