Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Pasta Party

Hi guys it's been a while but please forgive me because I have something very exciting to share with you
I got a pasta machine.


(Ooooooh.... chrome)

And, you know, the only way to properly break in a pasta machine is to throw a pasta party.
So, I invited over some friends and they brought a couple sauces and we had bunches of fun


So, to make pasta dough, you need 1 1/2 cups of durum wheat flour (or semolina) and 1 1/2 cups of All-Purpose unbleached white flour. Mix that together and put it on the table (or a baking board). Create a crater in the middle, and add 4 eggs, 2 Tablespons of water and 2 Tablespoons of olive oil.


Then you whisk that together gently with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour to the egg mixture. 


[and get real excited]


Then using your hands {And I used a dough cutter to help me out with this} knead to combine the ingredients together fully.


It should form a nice, doughy ball, like this. Knead again for about ten minutes


Then let the dough rest, covered, for ten more minutes. 


If you don't have a pasta machine, no sweat! Roll out your dough with a rolling pin to your desired thickness.


If you do have a pasta machine, be sure to follow the directions included in the manual.







After cutting the pasta, make sure to separate the strands [DON'T LET THEM TOUCH] before putting them in boiling salted water. 
{about a Tablespoon of salt will do for the water}


I made a pretty simple olive oil based sauce-
A few Tablespoons of olive oil (A little more than what will just cover the bottom of the pan- remember you can always add more), one clove of garlic minced, a little bit of sliced shallot- let that get slightly brown and add your pasta in with some fresh chives, and salt and pepper.


YUM!


We also had some pesto


Having a great time


The pasta machine was made to roll out spaghetti and fettuccine, but someone got a little creative and made a whole bunch of bowties 


Classy.

xoxo
Emily