Hi Claus,
I go to restaurants for an alternative experience to home cooking–and keep them separated as much as possible.
I don’t want to order Swedish pancakes in a restaurant–though I might order a crepe. The cultural experience I enjoy is the minute by minute interactions with friends. The Swedish pancakes I had in Stockholm at a great smorgasbord failed to impress–but not because of the pancakes.
This post is better suited to the General Discussions category under Culture, Media, General.
For me, anything fried in more than an eighth inch of oil. I could do it but wouldn’t use that amount of oil often enough to save for reuse. Plus, cleanup is too time-consuming.
Wow, the real one? Tell me your procedure! Please!! Fan of that.
Do you make your own fresh pasta?
Yes, but not always.
When I buy fresh pasta I’ve found a local importer of some of the best Italian ‘fresh’ pasta out there.
With that said my preferred home made pasta dishes are almost always made with dry pasta and you can’t make dry pasta at home. That’s (very close to) impossible to make at home.
Deep fried seafood, especially fried shrimp. Must be wild caught not farm raised.
Here are pictures. I can include the process if genuinely interested.
Looks good.
Yes please include the steps,
Thanks!!
How come? I make fresh pasta more often than not as I prefer the texture and flavor I have control over, but you can easily loop it over a drying rack overnight if for some reason (can’t think of one) you want it dried.
Is there a reason this would not work for you?
BTW, my (really good) basic fresh pasta method (so long as you have a stand mixer).
For me it’s mostly nit-picky stuff where the outcome at home is just the same as the outcome at a restaurant.
An example off the top of my head is Larb Gai, the minced chicken you eat in a little lettuce cup or wrap (like butter lettuce). I like it and the kids love it, and we’ve had it at several restaurants but our favorite has more minced veggies than many recipes call for, including minced water chestnuts. My hands go numb from all the fine mincing needed to get this dish completely put together, and it’s an appetizer that’s gone in 7 minutes after it’s finished.
So I’d rather get that at a restaurant. Or anything else where my output is not significantly different than a restaurant, that has a lot of steps or prepwork.
Pizza as mentioned by others already, too - I really love my homemade pizza and make it probably 3 times a month, but 550°F on a stone doesn’t get the same result as a real pizza oven. So every once in a while I just splurge on some good restaurant pizza.
My favourite pasta dishes are made in a way so that the pasta first boils til just harder than al dente, then rest in a bowl where I drizzle some quality olive oil over the pasta and turn the pasta gentle around in the olive oil.
Then I saute the pasta along with the veggies and/or meat I’m using in my pasta dish.
The times I’ve been making fresh pasta I feel the fresh pasta suffers a bit, when exposed to the final sautéing and for my tastebuds, this final quick sauté is very important to me as it in my view gives the pasta that little extra dimension to the taste of it.
I haven’t tried drying freshly made pasta though…can it tolerate being sautéed like dry pasta can ?
My preference has always been for dried pasta over fresh pasta, even my home made fresh pasta.
I simply like the texture of dry pasta better than the softer fresh pasta.
Do you use semolina in your fresh pasta?
Yes, always.
Do you saute your fresh pasta after you have boiled it ?
I am not sure I would consider it a sauté, but often cook it in sauce/other ingredients (and sometimes use some of the pasta water to thicken). In these cases I blanch it more than boiling to al dente. This is certainly the case with lasagne and carbonaras.
I pretty much sauté the pasta in all the pasta dishes I make.
That’s my tasta preference. First boiled to just short of al dente, then speed sautéed with the other ingredients in my pasta dish.
BTW I always use a cup of pasta water in my pasta dishes.
My spelling of Indian names is atrocious. Baigan berta, lamb vindaloo, chana masala, lamb shahi korma, rogan josh, pakoras and more pakoras, kulcha, mango pudding mixed with rice pudding, Anything with coriander chutney and tamarind sauce.
Hmmm… maybe boiling to start is not necessary (but never tried it). I can say that for lasagna and carbonara, I only boil for a minute or so and then cool in cold water and dry before moving on.
Based on your described methods I’d lightly blanch the fresh pasta, and skip the “EVOOiling” step. Fresh pasta is many times more permeable than dried, so it will take a lot less exposure to other flavors to absorb them, and why seal it off in oil before the process (my fresh pasta usually always has a bit of EVOO in it before cooking anyway).
If the main issue is texture there are several things you can do:
I sometimes do dried linguine (as I really can’t cut that from fresh), but in all honesty I find it kinda flavorless and texturally one dimensional over fresh. I am guessing your current methods go far in making up for that, but don’t think it’s necessary or advised with fresh.
But YMMV… what I prefer and what you prefer may be two entirely different things, and even if they aren’t, you may have a bit of trial and error to go thru before you nail it with fresh. So if you don’t see any additional light at the end of that tunnel, keep doing what works best for you. (c;
That’s fair enough considering that many English-language versions of Indian dishes vary considerably as well!
I simply like to swirl my boiled pasta in the other juices from the pasta dish I’m making that day.
I find boiled pasta, even the best high quality home made pasta, quite bland compared to the technique I use with first boil then saute together with the rest of the pasta dish ingredients.
Not that I can’t enjoy boiled fresh pasta, of course I can - but given the choice I prefer a pasta, that has been sautéd after it has been boiled.
It enhances the overall flavour of the pasta according to my taste pallet.
Since I started using that technique, I have stayed with it.
This technique is not used in dishes where you pack the pasta in layers, for instance lasagne.
