Lotta talk recently about pasta… so for those of you that make it fresh, what are your fav flavors? Some of mine are:
Spinach… blanched, blended with some EVOO and the eggs. Great with just about any sauce.
Salsa: tomatoes, cilantro, shallots, jalapeno, lime… blended finely and added to the eggs before combining the flour. Great for fettuccine covered in chili and queso fresca… or a ravioli filled with heavily reduced chili, served with green chili pesto.
Sundried Tomato: with a bit of EVOO, water, and red wine, seriously nuked before adding to egg mixture and then flour. Really good with a variety of cheese and pesto sauces.
A/A: anchovies and blanched asparagus, water, and white wine, seriously nuked before adding to egg mixture and then flour. Great with butter/parm/carbonara/tomato cream sauces.
I’ve seen it fresh at a few high end markets and fresh pasta markets, but I also found some in a specialty store that sells a selection of European goods near where I work. I’ve seen them at specialty Italian markets too. I’ve had both fresh and dried, and fresh is definitely better.
I like spinach pasta. I buy tri-color rotini for pasta salads and I think the orange/red color is sometimes from beets but I don’t taste that. I’ve had the opportunity to order squid ink pasta but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it - although I do love calamari and have no trouble eating that but cleaning a fresh whole squid isn’t going to happen in my lifetime.
I make pasta with fresh nettles every spring. All it really needs is good butter, but I’ve also topped with a fried egg and toasted buckwheat groats.
Saffron pasta is nice as well.
IMHO you can’t over-season pasta. Load as much veg puree as the flour can absorb. I bought a pound of brilliant green ramp pasta at a local farmer’s market. Lovely pasta, but totally without any flavor of ramp or anything other than perhaps faintly spinach. I’ve noticed the same with most vegetable pastas I’ve made with the exception of mushroom which seems to hold its own.
A few years back I was teaching a pasta-making class and was researching pasta desserts. I came across a Nigella Lawson recipe for chocolate pasta with a caramel pecan sauce. She used a store bought pasta but since I was teaching a class I decided to make the pasta (not that I could find it anywhere). It was a bit of trial and error but I finally landed on a mix of AP flour, semolina, and unsweetened cocoa powder. No measurements.
I’m tagging @CurlzNJ as I think she had a picture of the pasta at one time.
No to sugar, yes to eggs, salt and olive oil. I basically used my usual pasta recipe and then played with the ratios of the dry ingredients. The sauce is very sweet so I don’t add sugar to the pasta. I’ve seen chocolate pasta on some menus with a red wine braised short rib sauce which sounds interesting. It’s on my list to try come winter.
I can attest to the fact that it was not only not wrong, it was VERY right! Seriously-it was a total surprise how delicious this was! Unfortunately I don’t have that photo, though…wish I did! The entire meal was delicious, btw. Can y’all say Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese TOO???
I know that people put chocolate in chili, and I’ve heard of mole sauce with chocolate but I’ve never had occasion to have either. I would, with no hesitation, order chocolate pasta with red wine braised short ribs. Wowee…
Seriously-it was a total surprise how delicious this was! Unfortunately I don’t have that photo, though…wish I did! The entire meal was delicious, btw. Can y’all say Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese TOO???