My coworker was at his inlaws for Sunday gravy and posted pics so I decided to do some on Monday.
The gravy I can handle. I do a can of crushed tomatoes, about 10oz of tomato paste, sauteed mushrooms & onions, fresh garlic & fresh basil in the Dutch oven.
I have a pasta maker so I used the 4 egg semolina recipe. I had half a jar of roasted red peppers and I thought I’d experiment with a flavored pasta. The skins were impossible to get off, so I just put them into the chopper and made a puree. The flakes of skin looked nice but created some issues with the dough consistency. I managed some linguine but it had a very ruddy complexion. I guess this is actually good to absorb the gravy but made for some dumpy looking noodles.
The biggest issue I had was that the pepper flavor didn’t really show up in the pasta. The sauce was strong for sure, but even the plain noodles did not have much pepper flavor to them.
Does anyone have some helpful hints for making vegetable flavored pasta? I want to do spinach or mushroom next but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.
Brent, try dried porcini mushrooms and reconstitute by boiling in a few cups of water. Then boil down the water to half. Use that water and process the mushrooms.
I make pasta dough in the cuisinart. Learned a pretty effective method that requires no-kneading and is probably better than my hand made. If I want to add some herbs, mushrooms, etc to the pasta, I just throw them in the cuis with the eggs before I add the flour. You could probably do this same step with a food pro or blender of some type and then add the egg mixture to your flour well if you do it the traditional way.
I think I have different ideas on what is fun and satisfying. Making pasta is not one of them. It would be an interesting poll to see how many folks here that cook a lot make their own pasta.
Make all my pasta? No, but every once and a while I do enjoy the process (almost as much as the eating)
Ravioli would be my favorite to make but I make plain pasta much more often
I find the difference in texture, between freshly made pasta and dried pasta, to be incredible. The process of making it is fun too, for me, although I don’t do it often.
I made my first flavored pasta this weekend, with stinging nettles. I agree that the nettle flavor was not overly pronounced, but it was a very pretty green color. We just put butter and parm on it, very yummy.
Pretty much the only flavored pastas that I continue to make are squid ink and saffron (where you can taste the flavor). I will use spinach or tomato paste for coloring pasta, but I agree that the flavor is hard to pick up in most preparations.
to me, cooking is generally one of the most satisfying and relaxing things i do. it’s usually a solo project; no talking, just thinking, and seeing results immediately. adjusting, etc.
pasta and bread are my favorite because it’s really all about the manual process and a few elemental ingredients. it’s the opposite, for me, of cooking a great steak, which i obviously love. taking a great flannery ribeye and cooking it really, really, well is pretty easy. but bread and pasta is the opposite. you’re taking those raw ingredients, and accounting for timing, temperature, humidity, etc. It’s the most manual thing you can do. I love it. the fact that the results are delicious and you can see the delight in your guests’ eyes is the ultimate high for me.
Brent (and Yaacov), the difference for me is in the results. Living in the NYC area with so many great Italian shops, I can buy fresh pasta without having to do all the work and to me the results of what I could make and what I can buy are negligible. On the other hand, it is hard to find a great cassoulet so for me that is worth the effort of making one.
yes, you wrote that already. it’s a totally different perspective. i get where you’re coming from. but there’s another perspective that’s seemingly shared on this thread. no right or wrong.
being results oriented isn’t mutually exclusive of being process oriented…