Pasta Frenzy!
Posted by Andrea Busse on Friday, March 31st, 2006Tags for this Article: instruction, italian, Pasta, pasta-maker, recipe, tortellini
I had a blast the other night. I decided to finally break out the pasta maker that my parents gave us for Christmas. It took a long time for me to build up the courage, but I had some alone time (rare) and decided to give it a go. What great fun! First I had some difficulties figuring out a proper recipe – it kept coming out too dry and crumbly. But after some trial and error, I felt like I was in the heart of Italy cranking out my spaghetti. It’s amazing how simple it really is (when you have a KitchenAid).
4 cups flour
4 eggs
1 tbsp water.
How easy is that? The fun part was feeding it through the machine. When you fold it and put it through the rollers, sometimes it snaps – remember doing that with Silly Putty? In the end, we had reams of fresh spaghetti. And seriously – it tastes 1000 times better than store-bought.
With my new-found knowledge, we took our pasta maker to Ben and Andrea’s and made homemade tortellini.
Here is the recipe for the filling:
Potato Leek Tortellini
Chop 2 medium leeks
Butter
Couple sprigs thyme
One bay leaf
Salt and pepper (to taste)
1 cup heavy cream
Saute the leeks in butter until soft (30+ minutes)
Boil or bake and mash 2 large golden yukon potatoes
Cool, blend potatoes and leeks together and add grated parmesan cheese (to taste)
Spoon into fresh (thin) pasta shells and form into ravioli, sealing closed with water or melted butter
Serve with white truffle oil beurre blanc and slices of parmesan on top.
This site has a bunch of recipes for stuffed pasta. Fill your boots!
http://italianfood.about.com/od/stuffedpasta/
Posted on July 7th, 2009
Krista says:
I bought an Imperia pasta machine and have learned to love making fresh pasta. The first batch I made, curry fettuccine and had a some issues (but it was sooo tasty). I’ve made some plain fettuccine since then and have learned two things: once you mix up the dough let it sit for 15 minutes or so and if the pasta is sticking in the machine dust the dough with flour before you pass it through the rollers.
I used to have an electric maker that mixed the dough and then fed it through different dials to make the pasta, but found it was more trouble than it was worth. Buy a good pasta machine (mine is from Italy and you have to hand crank the dough through) but it is totally worth it.
I use 1 1/2 cups of unbleached flour with 2 eggs, mix it up, let it rest then gently knead it a few times before putting it through the machine. This is enough really good pasta for 2 people.