Sunday, May 5, 2013

Adventures in pasta-making - homemade ravioli

After taking a class at Brooklyn Kitchen, Tyler and I have been experimenting with making pasta. Right now, we make the dough with the aid of a food processor but I hope, someday, we'll perfect the art of the flour wall, the well of egg, salt, and olive oil, the slow fork and turn, then the pummel of our palms against the sticky cold mixture.

It's still a time-consuming process, even with the aid of kitchen tools, but the outcome is well worth the time. To take things apart, to know the ingredients, the steps, it always makes me appreciate the food we take for granted so much more.

Is there something you were glad to take the time to make from scratch?









10 comments:

  1. I am drooling! Yum! When I come to NY, you are so cooking for me. Just saying. ;)

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  2. Melissa these photo's and the final dish look amazing. I remember as a child, when dough rolling machines first became available in Australia, helping mum make all sorts of different pasta's, including ravioli and gnocchi (my 2 favourites), it was a Sunday treat that happened once or month or so. Putting the eggs in the 'well' and mixing it all together was my favourite part, and a lot easier than it seems - the kneading to the right consistency is something I would still probably as my mum to help me with. I tend to make peirogi or dum sum (with ready made wrappers) more now, but I always think of them as a polish or asian version of ravioli ;)

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  3. My family always makes a big deal out of homemade pasta. We usually do it with friends or visiting family -- many hands make light work! We have a pasta machine to roll out the dough for raviolis. We also have a device called a chitarra which is strung with guitar strings. (Really) After rolling out the dough with the pasta maker, it is pressed into the chirarra. Then, strumming the strings with a guitar pick causes the pasta to fall through in rough cut strands. (Rough cut strands grips the sauce better ... )

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  4. That looks delicious! We made homemade ravioli twice, and it was really good--so different from store bought. (We did the whole flour well thing, but we did roll the sheets through a pasta maker.) Just hard to keep little hands out of the dough, so we're waiting for a good nap time one of these days to try again. :)

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  5. I made pasta once, all by hand (flour well and everything). I was practically in tears by the time I was finished because, wow, it takes some muscle and patience to get the dough thin enough. It tasted good, but I'll defintely use machines next time.

    I thought of you guys yesterday as my hubby and I bumped into each other in our tiny kitchen while we made dinner :)

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  6. YUM! I could never, ever go on a carbs-restricted diet because pasta is my very favorite meal in the whole wide world (probably b/c I grew up in an Italian neighborhood). I've never experimented with making my own, though. Yours sure looks delicious. As far as making from scratch, the only thing I can think of is my Hungarian grandmother's paprika chicken recipe. It's time consuming, but worth it to have the homemade dumplings to go along with it. :)

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  7. Yum! Those are expertly crafted raviolis, Melissa. And what, pray tell, was the sauce you created? It looks divine...

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    1. Hey Erin, it is a brown butter sage sauce. Just burn butter in a pan, add sage for a minute so it crisps up, then add a bit of lemon juice. It's simple and delicious.

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  8. Wow, that looks amazing. I've never made pasta from scratch, despite being a total carb addict . . . will have to try my hand at that someday!

    The first year Spencer and I were dating, I asked him what kind of dessert he wanted for his birthday. He requested lemon meringue pie -- something I had absolutely no idea how to make -- so I called up my grandmother, a master baker, who happily agreed show me the ropes. We made two pies from scratch: one for Spence, and one from my grandfather. I'm not sure if that pie was the best thing ever, but the experience sure was.

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