Pasta Frenzy Continues

If you think it's all about the sauce, and pasta is used merely to bulk the dish, you couldn't be more wrong. I've advanced my pasta making to decorative varieties. :-)

First off, the colourful pasta. So far I've mastered the white shade (basic pasta dough), green and red - so a pasta dish in Italian coluors was inevitable. Due to the proportions, we ended up with enough food for 3 meals (ravioli), and at least 5 servings of soup pasta! :-)

Red pasta:

200g of plain flour
1 egg
75 g cooked beetroot
a pinch of salt
extra flour for dusting

Blend the beetroot in a food processor to a smooth paste. Add flour, salt and egg, mix all the ingredients into a dough, adding more flour if too sticky, which often happens with this type of dough as beetroots tend to be really moist. . Knead for a couple of minutes, until it's smooth and flexible. Cover the dough with cling filma and put it into the fridge for about 30 minutes to rest.
Roll and cut into desired shape.

Green pasta:
150g plain flour
1 egg
90 g spinach
a pinch of salt
extra flour for dusting

Rinse spinach and squeeze it well (make sure you squeeze all the liquid, as the dough will be very moist anyway). Finely chop the leaves into a smooth, green paste. In a large bowl mix flour, egg, salt and spinach until you get a dought. Knead for a couple of minutes, you may need to add more flour - this dough is really sticky. Cover with cling film and put to the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.
Roll it thin and cut into the shape of your choice.

Comments

Gingerbread Layer Cake

This Christmas I decided to "pimp up" my gingerbread a bit, after a last minute inspiration. I saw a photo of this cake, literally a day before making the cake and decided it's an absolute must this Christmas. I really like how the cake combines gingerbread and gateau type cake features, it's both presentable and delicious. The cake (4 layers): 150 g honey (liquid) 200 g butter or margarine 500 g plain flour 3 yolks 4 tbsp milk 1 tbs purified soda 100 g sugar 1 tbsp ground ginger 1 tbsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground nutmeg 1 tsp ground cardamon 1tsp ground cloves a pinch of ground black pepper Combine the ingredients in a large bowl - as it's really hard to do, you may be best off using dough whisks on a food mixer. Cover the bowl with cling film and put into the fridge for 24 hours. After that time, divide the dough into 4 parts, place on a baking paper-lined baking tray and bake in 180C for about 15 minutes. Leave to cool. The cream: ...

Involtini di Pollo

The meal we had today is an attempt to copy a dish I first tried in one of the Italian restaurants in our district. I am extremely picky as far as food is concerned, and pretty merciless when evaluating Italian restaurants. I've heard a few times that Italian food is 'the blandest' ever, sadly it was the opinion of people who know the "Italian" food merely from Italian restaurants. And those, if located outside Italy rarely can do the food justice. Luckily, we live in a 'posh" area (haha), people like to pose and splash money around, which usually is either quite entertaining, or simply sad, but on the positive side there are a few places serving decent food, including two (!) Italian restaurants. The first time I tried the dish in question I actually just tried somebody else's meal and ended up devouring half of their food! As it sometimes happens, the meal that looks nothing-special in the menu turns out to be a masterpiece combination of sce...

Home made pasta

I got a pasta maker for my birthday and we seem to be eating nothing but pasta since! Though the every first attempt was far from successful, I quickly sussed it out. The fact that I naturally tend to start with the most complex things, didn't help here, either. Instead of taking baby steps and making simple spaghetti or tagliatelle first, I had a go at making ravioli :-) Well, I ate my humble pie and next time I made simple soup pasta. Successfully! :-) It reminded my of the childhood days when my gran would make a delicious soup with home-made pasta when I stayed with her. Of course, I keep hearing questions, like: why bother making something you can buy in every single shop? Well, I bother as the home-made pasta is incomparably better! :-P To make basic pasta dough you need: 1 cup of flour 1 egg a pinch of salt a dash of olive oil water if the dough is to dry more flour - if the dough is to sticky, also to sprinkle on the worktop The proportions above are enough fo...

Search This Blog