Pasta Project

Just when you thought things were going to be regular, she stops posting for a couple of weeks. Things have been crazy irl, and not in a good way.

From cookkk

My first real car accident involving another car, and it's strange how the first thing that crossed my mind as I was sitting there was "naw =( you can't be serious, I am 500m away from my destination!!" when really it should have been "what on earth just happened...". The next thought was, "great, I have glass all over me, but wait, they don't cut! O_o This is amazing!" before the logical side of me kicked in and it was all "ahh.. what do I do now...". I'm just glad to have friends who knows exactly what I need to get out of a rut, so B and H- thank you so so much for being there for me, for taking my mind off things with dinner (fried chicken and beer, can't get any better than that for comfort food) and for the reassurance.

Sunday morning started off with a trip to a local Victoria's Basement (local enough for me- it was at Castle Hill). Our loot: a pasta machine, a fondue set, a bundt tin and a square baking pan. After badminton, it was an efficient grocery run for last minute ingredients (I picked up a new phone on the way so yay I can finally whatsapp on the go again) before pasta time!

From cookkk

And it was the first time making pasta. I don't eat a lot of pasta- it's my sister's favourite food, but I prefer rice usually, or rice noodles like udon or hor fun, but egg noodles.. hm... don't eat it often at all.

From cookkk

The ingredients are simple enough: 500g flour to about 5 eggs. We had leftover "00" flour from the lime tart base last time, so we used that. A pile of flour (which I didn't measure...) and eggs in a well, mix with a fork and incorporate the flour into the egg slowly. The hard part of actually keeping the eggs in without making a mess. The eggs were trying to escape pretty badly... but you have to persist till you get a smooth dough. I think I poured out a little too much flour and we used a bit of olive oil and some water to get the dough together.

From cookkk

Knead into a dough and fridge it for a bit... then separate into bits and put it through the pasta machine. This was really exciting, rolling out the first dough into a fine sheet of lasagna, before experimenting with the different cuts- fettuccine and angel hair. We decided to make fettuccine, with a thickness setting of 6. You can go up to 9, which makes a really really fine sheet, but it has to be really well floured and... easily overcooked I think, so, as a first test, we decided to play it safe with 6.

From cookkk

So we rolled out the dough, cut it into fettuccine, and then laid them out to dry before boiling in salted water... and tossing it through a sauce and smoked salmon on top =D Dinner is served!

From cookkk

The recipe for the sauce? Didn't measure anything, but off the top of my head, it was a couple of handful basil leaves, a handful or so of almonds, some garlic, a good splash of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice, plus salt and pepper to taste. Food process it to as fine or as chunky as you like it- I prefer mine slightly chunky. That's the pesto side of it. Then, add in an avocado, about 150mL-250mL of cream, and you can either food process it till it's smooth, or, be lazy like me and just mix it all with a fork to retain some texture.

From cookkk

Of course, season it to taste. Verdict? PS said the pasta was definitely different from the store bought ones, in a good way. Will be making this again when we get a chance since she's got the machine now! For a first go, this could be considered a success, though it's nowhere near as perfect looking as a professional's. 

Homemade pasta is nice, but I remain more a rice person.