1.26.2008

Whole Wheat Pasta - Part 2, The Rolling

In part 1 of this adventure, I made the dough for the pasta and placed it in the fridge for 4 days. Upon sitting in the fridge, the dough became noticeably darker but just as moist as when I had placed in to rest.

The first concern of this experiment was the physical properties of this dough. With only half the flour bill made up of unbleached white, would the dough be sturdy enough to hold up to rolling to a 1/32" or so? It did so with flying colors! It was sturdy yet tender (when I tasted a raw noodle). Sorry not enough images to show the rolling itself. To roll out the squat discs, I generously floured the surface and rolled each piece to a rectangle of about 18" x 12". It was approximately as thick as a flax seed; I could feel the bumpiness of them as I rolled. I divided the rectangle with my spackle knife and cut the ribbon shaped noodles one at a time (faster than it sounds) and tossed them on my cutting board in our very low humidity kitchen until dinner (several hours in advance, although they'd be ready to eat immediately).

whole wheat pasta, part 3
Freshly cut noodles.

whole wheat pasta, part 4
All the noodles drying on my cutting board.

With the composition of the dough just peachy and easy to work with, the final question will be answered tonight. Taste??? We're preparing to eat them in a minimal preparation to highlight the noodle. I'm considering a sparse sauce of brown butter and sage. The raw noodles are pretty tasty. We'll see how the dish comes out. Very exciting.