HOMEMADE PASTA - Daring Cooks' Challenge - July / 2011

Leia em PORTUGUÊS

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

One more awesome challenge! Just perfect for my brand new KitchenAid pasta roller attachment. Ok, this time I wasn't totally faithful to the guidelines of the challenge. The idea this month was to get our hands dirty, by making a style of pasta or noodle without the use of motorized tools. Despite the fact that I used a motorized pasta roller, I DID get my hands (and kitchen) dirty with flour, but had a blast making my own pasta. To compensate, I tried my hand at vegetable colored pasta. The result was amazing!

Thanks Steph, for the great challenge :o)

I started by preparing the vegetables. I cooked whole beetroots in the pressure cooker, until soft (30 minutes for small beets).

Then, I steamed a bunch of spinach, then drained, and squeezed the excess water.

Finally, I peeled and cut 2 medium carrots into half inch chunks and steamed until soft.

The vegetables yielded about 1 cup each.

To a food processor, I added the carrots, 1 egg, a pinch of salt, 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, and 1/2 cup all purpose flour. I processed until the carrots were totally pureed and well blended with the other ingredients. Then, I added more flour, 1/4 cup at a time, processing for a few seconds after each addition, until It formed a ball of dough which should not be sticky at all. I coated the ball of dough with vegetable oil and let it rest in a plastic bag while I worked on the other vegetables.

I did the same with the spinach, and then with the beets. The amount of flour varied a little from one vegetable to another, so these amounts are not precise. I needed an average of 1 1/2 cups for each batch.

After the three batches were ready and had rested for about 30 minutes, I started rolling and cutting them using a pasta roller. I watched this KitchenAid VIDEO to learn how to use it properly.

You can choose to cook the pasta right away, or hang it to dry, and store for future use. I decided to dry mine. I had to improvise a drying rack with a cardboard box and some bamboo chopsticks which did the job very well (I was very surprised at the price of a plastic pasta drying rack here in Brazil, something around US$100).

Cook the pasta just before serving, for only a couple of minutes. If you decide not to dry it, it will probably need only a minute to cook. I served mine with Aglio & Olio (finely chopped garlic fried in olive oil until lightly golden).

I highly recommend you visit THE DARING KITCHEN to see all the amazing pastas everyone has created, and get inspired!