5.16.2015

porcini pasta

Ingredients tossed together, mixed, rested and rolled.  That's my quick fix for fresh pasta.  It's not quite as fine as that derived from machine rolling, but it's pretty good for a weeknight and a few servings barely takes an hour.


The other night @ChefBillGlover gifted me a sample of porcini powder and suggested one good use for it was as a partial replacement for flour in pasta!  

Here's my version:
 The powder, WOW!  After I broked the vacuum seal what an earthy strong smell!

This is the dough after some mixing in the bread machine: eggs (3, 160 g), olive oil (10 g), salt (3 g), porcini powder (20 g), unbleached white flour (290), whole wheat coarse ground flour (10 g).  I like a bit of whole wheat to tighten up the dough.  Look at that color!

After a few minutes kneading in the bread machine, I cut it into 3 balls, wrapped and let the dough rest for about 10 minutes.

 Using some whole wheat flour to keep from sticking, the first blob of dough was rolled to about 18" x 12" and kind of thin.  It got tough at the end and I was too impatient to wait for it to relax to get it thinner.

 To cut noodles, I laid out the pasta and let it dry out about 5 minutes.  This prevents the noodles from sticking to each other later.  Then I just cut lines with a pizza roller.  This is different than many cut pasta, but I like it, it's faster than it looks.

 Scooped the noodles from the center into a bunch.

 I let these rest on a wooden peel for about an hour while I went out for a quick wine tasting.

  Tossed in boiling salted water for about 5 minutes, strained and tossed with blanched/sauteed asparagus and peas, and topped with reggiano.