Monthly Archives: August 2011

Allow your mind to drift with me, into a type of pasta-induced meditation.  Imagine with me, if you will, four silky smooth sheets of homemade pasta.  Haven’t made them yet?  No matter, you will.  The mood might strike on a hot day, when you can barely muster up the will to boil a pot of water.  Or, maybe, when just a tinge of chill drifts through the warm end of summer air, and the leaves just begin to turn.  Perhaps it will be your day off, or on a Sunday, in preparation for family dinner.  Are you catching my drift?  The mood will strike, and when it does, no season, weather trend, or force of nature will be able to stop you from making pasta customized to your every whim.  ”Winter spring summer or fall, all you’ve got to do is call” and it will be there, right there, at the ready to be filled or sauced with whatever you choose.

The late spring shelling peas and favas that inspired the series of fortunate events which led to the pasta-making extravaganza fit my mood perfectly at the time.  I rolled out sheets of pasta to the thinnest setting, feeling like a seamstress measuring fine silk, as I draped them over my hands.  I blended favas and peas with a handful of mint, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic, nutty parmesan, and a generous drizzle of olive oil.  What resulted was a very green (in the fresh spring herbal sense), pesto-textured ravioli filling, which could double as a topping for crostini, as Jamie Oliver intended it, or a spread for sandwiches or crackers.

I mounded filling by the tablespoonful onto sheets of pasta, just as I had seen Iron Chefs and actors in Italian movies do.  Then, I spread a thin egg wash around the perimeter of each mound of filling with my fingers, and placed the other sheet of dough on top, pressing the top sheet of dough gently around each mound of filling to seal the little pockets.  I wanted circular ravioli, so I pressed and twisted a biscuit cutter around each pocket of filling, until the ravioli was freed from the rest of the dough.  I had what looked like legitimate ravioli!  I boiled the ravioli in water I salted to taste like the sea, and finished the ravioli with a drizzle of basil oil made fresh from the garden, parmesan shavings, and toasted walnuts to add a roasty crunch.

Spring may be a memory of the past, but look out into your garden, or check your favorite produce stand at the farmers market for inspiration. Make your pasta dough, and fill it with whatever fits the season or mood. If favas and peas are nowhere to be found until next spring, consider one of the following:

Make an herbed-ricotta filling, and top with whatever is fresh and available:

Fill the ravioli with a mixture of ricotta+fresh herbs+minced garlic +a drizzling of olive oil+ salt and pepper, and top with roasted cherry tomatoes, toasted garlic, and a drizzling of olive oil, or, whisper-thin slices of sauteed yellow squash.

Blend up a thick pesto out of whatever is fresh available:

(And always season to taste with salt)

•Sundried tomatoes+toasted pine nuts+crushed red pepper+basil+parmesan+olive oil

•kale+garlic+toasted walnuts+lemon juice+freshly ground pepper+olive oil

•Make a traditional pesto using basil, olive oil, pine nuts or walnuts and a splash of lemon juice. Mix with equal parts ricotta cheese.

•Sauteed zucchini blossoms+garlic+olive oil+pine nuts or sunflower seeds+basil+olive oil

More Inspiration from around the web:

•If your garden is spouting rainbow chard like mine, Guilty Kitchen’s Swiss Chard Ravioli may be in your near future!

•The Meaning of Pie is such a clever blog name, and how could we pass by such a fresh looking Pasta With Checca Sauce ?

•Gluten-free readers should have homemade pasta too!  How about Mama Me’s Gluten-Free Multi-Grain Fettuccine?

•In the mood for rich and creamy?  Annie’s Eats Mushroom and Cheese Ravioli has three kinds of cheese, sauteed mushrooms, and a spinach cream sauce.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.

As you can see, pasta enlightenment is only a few ingredients away!

Minted Fava and Pea Ravioli with Basil Oil and Toasted Walnuts

Inspired by Jamie Oliver’s Incredible Smashed Pea and Fava Bean Toast

Makes 20 Ravioli

•1 recipe basic pasta dough, rolled into thin sheets

•1 pound peas, shelled (about 6 ounces of shelled peas)

•1 pound fava beans, shelled (about 5 ounces shelled favas)

•1 small bunch of mint, leaves picked

•1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

•2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

•juice from 1 lemon (reserve the zest for the basil oil)

•Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

•1 egg white, whisked together with 1 tablespoon water

•1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

•additional torn mint, basil, and parmesan shavings as garnish

•Lemon Scented Basil-Garlic Oil (recipe below)

1) Place the peas, fava beans, mint, grated parmesan, olive oil, and lemon juice in a food processor.  Pulse until roughly pureed.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Pulse the food processor a few more times to incorporate.  At this point, set a big saucepan of generously salted water on the stove to boil.

2) Lay out one sheet of pasta dough.  Mound the filling by tablespoons onto the pasta dough, leaving about 2 inches of space between each mound of filling.  Paint the egg white mixture in a thin layer on the pasta dough, around the perimeter of each mound of filling.

3) Place another sheet of pasta over the first sheet, and gently press the two pasta layers together around each mound of filling.  Cut around each ravioli using a biscuit cutter, ravioli stamp, or knife.  Lay the finished ravioli on a lightly floured surface until ready to boil, or allow the ravioli to dry for about an hour and freeze (thanks for the tip, Annie!)

4) Cook the ravioli in a large saucepan of salted, boiling water for 3-5 minutes, or until al dente (tender, but still toothsome).  Drain well.

5)  Drizzle with Lemon-Scented Basil Oil, and garnish with toasted walnuts, torn mint, a couple basil leaves, and shaved parmesan.

Lemon-Scented Basil-Garlic Oil

• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup packed basil leaves
• zest from 1/2 small lemon
• 1 small garlic clove, chopped
• Salt to taste

The snowball effect exists, even in the month of August.  Have you ever set out to do something simple, just for once, and gotten carried away by the fun of it all?  For me, it all began with the shelling peas I grew in my garden.  Shelling peas inspired an impulse buy of some lonely fava beans at the farmers market (I really don’t need much encouragement to go overboard at the farmers market.  How about you?)  Favas and peas led to me to think about all manner of related dishes, from falafel to risotto, and eventually, pasta.  I decided to make a minted fava and pea ravioli, with a zap of lemon and nutty parmesan cheese.  But first, I needed good, fresh pasta.  Dried pasta fits the bill on most nights.  But I am, after all, still on summer vacation, so I decided to make the most of my remaining leisure time and break out the good old pasta rolling attachment on my mixer.

I needed to brush up on my pasta dough-making skills, so I consulted the Culinary Institute of Spoon With Me, ie:  my cookbook shelf.  At its core, fresh pasta is made up of flour and eggs, usually including salt, and often, a drizzle of olive oil.   I turned to one of my favorite cookbook authors, Sally Schneider.  She’s the ‘teach a girl to fish, feed her for a lifetime‘ kind of cookbook author.  Schneider imparts her culinary mad skills through pages and pages of basic techniques, and possible improvisations using the techniques taught.  Here’s the process, step by step.

 

First, make a well out of flour on a large surface such as a cutting board, countertop, or large bowl.   (I used 00 flour, which some say makes a more tender pasta, but all-purpose flour works here as well).  Crack the eggs into the middle, sprinkling the salt and drizzling the olive oil on top of the eggs.  Now, I feel that I should give you a heads up about fashioning said flour-egg well.  It can spring a leak with barely a moment’s notice, and unleash a gleaming, raging river of egg over the terrain of your counters and floors (speaking from personal experience here).  Building a well in a large bowl will both prevent this conundrum, and take away some of the exhilaration that goes along with narrowly avoiding disaster.

Slowly and gradually draw flour in from the interior walls of the well using small circular whisking motions.

And eventually, it will all come together.

Now for one of the most important steps:  Kneading.  Exact technique is not the key here.  Push the dough down, smoosh it, flip and massage it.  Don’t stop too soon!  Keep going until the dough is smooth, silky, and elastic, with just the slightest bit of stickiness to the touch.

Cut into four equal pieces, wrap in plastic, and let them rest for 30 minutes.  While you wait, you can start your sauce or filling.

Now, you can either roll the dough out by hand, or do what I like to do and use a pasta roller.  Smoosh (yes, smoosh) one of your pieces of dough into a flat oval.  Pass the dough through the roller on the widest setting.  Fold the dough into thirds, then feed it through twice more at the same setting (folding each time).

Set your dough roller to the next thinnest setting.  Mine starts at “one” for the widest, “seven” for the thinnest.  Run the dough through two times (without folding), then turn the knob to the next thinnest setting.  Continue the same process, running the dough through twice at each subsequent setting, until you’ve reached the desired thinness.  For Ravioli I like my pasta thin, so I made it all the way to the seventh setting.  Set your completed dough on a tea towel, cutting in half if necessary.  Allow to dry for five minutes, then loosely cover to avoid further drying.  From here, you can run your dough through a pasta cutter, cut by hand, or fill to make ravioli.

Learning the technique for making fresh pasta dough opens up an infinite world of possibilities, from customizing your dough with herbs, different flours, or exotic ingredients such as squid ink, to endless combinations of fillings and sauces.  Use your favorite sauce, or stay tuned for a ravioli tutorial, a recipe for minted fava and pea filling, and a conglomeration of filling and sauce inspiration from around the web!

What is your favorite way to dress fresh pasta?

Fresh Pasta Dough

Process learned from many sources, but mainly adapted from Sally Schneider’s A New Way to Cook

Makes about 24 ounces of pasta, or about 8 servings (any extra dough can be rolled out, cut and frozen for future use)

• 1 1/4 cups 00 or all purpose flour, or more as needed
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Mound the flour on a large work surface.  Create a well in the center with walls about 1 1/2 inches high.  Crack the eggs into the well.  Sprinkle the kosher salt and olive oil over the eggs.  Using a fork, lightly and carefully whisk the eggs, drawing in flour from the inner rim of the well bit by bit until the mixture comes together into a loose, shaggy dough.

Knead the dough for about 8 minutes until smooth and elastic with just the slightest hint of stickiness, adding a teaspoon of flour at a time as needed to prevent sticking.  If the dough feels moist and sticky, knead in a bit more flour.

Divide the dough into four equal pieces.  Form each piece into a 1/2 inch disc, wrapping each in plastic wrap.  Set aside and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

To roll out the dough, set your pasta machine to the widest setting.  Flatten the dough into an oval, and  feed the dough through the machine, guiding it with your hands.  Fold the dough into thirds, lightly flour it, and pass it through the machine three more times at the same setting, folding each time.

Without folding, pass the dough through each subsequent setting two times, until the pasta is at your desired thinness.  Lay the dough out onto tea towels to dry for five minutes.  Repeat with the remaining discs of dough.

Cut the dough as desired.  Here are a few options for pasta cutting.

To cook, fill a large saucepan with water.  Bring to a boil and add a generous amount of kosher salt (the water should taste like the sea).  Cook for about 4 minutes, or until tender but still toothsome (Cooking time will change depending on the shape and thickness of the pasta.  Top with