Saturday, March 24, 2012

Week 13 - Pasta

Pasta is a staple that everyone loves in some form or fashion. Whether it be penne in a Cajun spiced Alfredo sauce, macaroni and cheese, or good ol' basic spaghetti. It's a natural comfort food. It's also an ingredient the average home cook takes for granted. I know I did. It always seemed like this magic and mystical thing you must buy from a box. Boy was I wrong. Not only is home made pasta fairly easy (I'm sure having some actual pasta equipment would help even more), it is delicious.

You need to have a stand mixer for this recipe. I would also recommend buying at the very least a pasta roller. I hand rolled everything. It was too thick, although the noodles would have been great in chicken soup!

You'll Need:
200g Sweet Rice Flour
150ml Rapidly Boiling Water
2 large Eggs
150g Millet Flour
50g Tapioca Flour
1tsp Salt
15ml Olive Oil

Put a paddle attachment on your stand mixer, if you have one of the fancy scraper ones I think it would work better than the original.

In the bowl for your mixer measure out your sweet rice flour.

In a SEPARATE bowl measure out your millet flour, tapioca flour and salt.

In yet another bowl slightly scramble your eggs.

Turn your mixer on at it's lowest speed (on the Kitchen Aid that is "stir") then pour your boiling water into your sweet rice flour. let that mix and mix and mix until the bowl is cool to the touch. (this does something to the starch and adds stability, I don't understand all the chemistry but it's called gelatinizing.)

Slowly add in your egg in three parts, wait for the eggs to fully incorporate before adding more.

In three parts add in your flour mixture.

Once completely incorporated add your olive oil. It should come together into a nice dough that will lift with your paddle.

Split your dough into four even pieces. Cover the three pieces your are not rolling out with a clean damp kitchen towel. Because there is no gluten in this dough there is no need to let it rest, so get rolling. If you are rolling by hand have parchment and extra sweet rice flour handy. You will get an arm work out. If you are using a pasta machine then follow the instructions provided until I can get my pasta attachment and play with it. Then I can give better instructions.

All that's left is cutting the pasta into the desired shapes. We made noodles and mezza luna ravioli. The cooking time is going to vary greatly depending on your pasta shape. Just make sure to salt your cooking water like the ocean.

Ravioli Filling: (All approximate)
15oz Ricotta Cheese
4oz Chavrie Goat Cheese
1/4c Parmesan
1/2c Shredded Mozzarella
1 clove of garlic minced and turned into paste (mince then sprinkle on 1/4 tsp salt. Let sit for 20min. Using the flat of the blade on a large chefs knife smoosh and scrape the garlic until it turns into a paste.)
1/2c Fresh chopped spinach

Use an egg wash to seal your ravioli. Make sure to press out all air bubbles or the pasta will burst and you will have very cheesy water.

Happy eating!
Tori

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