pasta a la Homer
Freshly made pasta is so superior to the store-bought kind that I always feel bad that I don’t do it more often. I managed to pick up the KitchenAid pasta roller set
In fact, take a look at my setup:
That is the power of parallel processing, folks.
Fresh Basil Pasta
serves 4-5
4 large eggs
400 grams flour (14.1 oz)
1 tablespoon olive oil
3-5 leaves of fresh basil, finely chopped
½ teaspoon salt
Combine ingredients and gently knead into a smooth dough. If the dough is too sticky or too dry, adjust with small amounts of flour and water. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 20 minutes. Cut the dough into quarters and run a piece through the rollers at the thickest setting a few times, folding in half lengthwise between each run, dusting lightly with flour to avoid sticking. Then run it through without folding, reducing the thickness setting between each run until you reach the desired noodle thickness. Cut the sheet to a manageable length and run it through the cutter and then hang the noodles up to dry as you finish processing all of your dough.
To serve this, I replicated a recipe from the Old Spaghetti Factory that The Boyfriend was exceptionally fond of back in the day. They claim that Homer—the Greek poet, not the Simpson—lived off of the dish. Always one to fiddle with the classics, I added in some heirloom tomatoes and steak strips to jazz it up and also to help counteract the saltiness of aged mizithra cheese.
Fettuccine with Mizithra Cheese and Browned Butter
serves 2
3 cups cooked pasta, drained
3 tablespoons of butter
1½-2 cups of hard mizithra cheese, grated
2 large tomatoes, chopped
cooked steak strips or other protein source
Brown the butter in a saucepan and add the pasta. Toss the pasta to coat with butter and mix in most of the cheese. Remove from heat and top with tomatoes and steak strips and season with remaining cheese. Garnish with a little more chopped basil for flash.
Full feed
Santa forgot my pasta roller set in the sleigh, so I have been considering correcting the oversight myself. Maybe Mom is sending her extruder attachment next month, though. We shall see.
Love your dual machine set-up. You’re all set for real production. And I love the pasta with herbs. beautiful. you’ve given me inspiration.
Two kitchenaids!? So jealous! It must work well, because the end result looks fantastic! I bet you could come up with some great flavor combinations.
I won the red one in a raffle just a few weeks ago and the old one will probably go to a friend, but in the meantime I am making the most of having two around.
I want to get a KA pasta roller set. Where did you find it on sale?! Your pasta looks fantastic.
I’m tired of rolling out my pasta because I can never get it as thin as a machine does. I hope I get one of these sets soon.
Memoria – The KitchenAid 3 Piece set
was available at amazon.com for $100 and KitchenAid was offering a rebate for 20% off select attachements. Unfortunately it looks like the rebate ended on 12/31.
I cannot believe you have two Kitchenaids! I am so jealous roonie…
Made this last night, subbing fresh coriander for the basil and it was so yummy! I find the texture very appealing, quite unlike store-bought pasta. Thanks, will be making this again (and I don’t even have a pasta machine, works just as well to just roll the dough out thinly and then cut into strips with pizza cutter).
I’m glad you liked it Marisa! I also prefer the texture of homemade pasta and always make a large batch so I can freeze or refrigerate extras for later.