Pasta Machine
Welcome to October – definitely one of my favorite months of the
year. I think we all love the change in weather – the end of the heat….Ok so it
was 97º yesterday but it is amazing how after five months of 100º heat anything
under 100º feels cool.
What I love most about the fall and spring months here in
Arizona is you can open things up and I love making a fire, having a game on
and doing some cooking. Anyone who knows Isabel and I – we both love to cook,
especially together. And we have some cooking on the calendar this spring
including the start of the Mark and Isabel Supper Club which we will say more
about in blogs to come.
Of course Isabel and I both love design and we are having so
much fun working together both on design and in the kitchen. Design of course
takes months and many times, years, while cooking can be accomplished in a few
hours. Both are about beauty, taste, and bringing delight and when we can do
both cooking and design with a project it is absolutely heaven. I love the
reaction we get to our cooking posts and I get it – not everyone can live in a
Candelaria Design home, or go on a Candelaria Design Tour to Italy, but
everyone can enjoy a Candelaria Design meal!
With that concept in mind we are proud to announce our new
Candelaria Collection®!!! Our Candelaria Collection® is nothing more than a way
to share our passion for good living in a way that is attainable and affordable
for everyone. It is our way to share our recipes that we have learned from our
travels, our clients, family and many friends who own marquis restaurants
across the country.
So what would we start the Candelaria Collection® with but one
of my favorite gadgets in the kitchen – a Pasta Machine! Ok I know – it’s just
so much easier to just grab a bag of pasta, dump it into a pot of salted
boiling water and in 9 minutes your pasta is done…..and that’s it – it’s done.
The experience is over. Very American – 9 minutes and it’s over. It is no
different that grabbing a magazine filled with floor plans off the rack at Safeway’s
and starting construction – done. No, making pasta is about the experience –
both making it, tasting it, and enjoying it. There is nothing like the taste
and delicacy of fresh pasta.
Our pasta machine is beautiful and practical as the attachments
for fettuccini and spaghetti are permanently attached to the main pasta roller.
Like anything, the more I make pasta the better I get at it and the more
comfortable it becomes which then pushes me to try more and more spins on the
basic recipe. As with everything in life, the more you push the boundary the
bigger the horizon gets. Pasta making is
endless. What I love about making pasta is how it gets everyone involved –
especially kids. They love it – it’s like a big playdough party that you get to
eat!
Isabel and her Earth and Images team and Damon Wake and I from
my office all got together to use the Candelaria Collection® Pasta Machine at
the kitchen and home we designed in Silverleaf. The entire afternoon and dinner
was captured in the October issue of Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine currently
on the newsstands. What fun to make pasta and share the experience with our
clients, their friends and the team from Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine! What
a wonderful afternoon and magical evening. Our Pasta Machine is now available
and can ship in just days just in time for the Holiday season. You can order
yours now at http://www.candelariadesign.com/candelaria-products and it
makes a fantastic gift.
So once you have your machine how do you make pasta???? Well
here is a recipe adapted from several recipes but mostly the recipe from my
good friend, chef and author, Elizabeth Wholey. https://www.amazon.com/Sustenance-Food-Traditions-Italys-Heartland/dp/8890746106 Enjoy!!!
Making the pasta:
6 eggs
The chef’s in Italy at our
farmhouse like to make the pasta with two flours: two-thirds (Type 0) white
floor and one-third semolina flour, made from durum wheat.
The ingredients are simple:
flour and eggs. The quantities of flour to eggs will be adjusted as you go so
you must mix the pasta by hand. The idea is to create a dough that doesn’t stick to your hands or the board you’re working on. If it’s too dry you add another egg; if it’s too wet you add more flour. Always dust your
pasta board and your hands with floor so the dough does not stick to your hands
or the board. You will use this technique all the way down the line.
Fill a large pot at least 5
inches deep with water. Cover and put on the stove to boil; add one heaping
tablespoon of coarse salt.
To make the pasta, start
out with 4-1/2 cups of flour and six eggs. On a large flat board pour out the
flour and shape into a mound. Make a valley in the middle of the mound – create
a volcano! Break the eggs into the volcano and beat them with a fork. With a
fork, begin to cover the eggs with flour, and continue little by little mixing
in just enough flour so that the dough eventually sticks together uniformly.
Flour your hands and knead for eight minutes until it is shiny and elastic. To
test its readiness, stick your finger into the middle of the dough. If it comes
out clean, the dough is ready for the pasta machine. If the dough is still
sticky, knead in a little more flour.
Important: let the dough
rest for at least 10 – 20 minutes. It can also be wrapped well and refrigerated
at this point to be rolled out the next day.
I then cut the dough ball
into quarters or slices which then are easy to roll. Start with the dial on 1
and keep rolling the dough through adjusting the setting higher and higher
until you get to the pasta thinness that feels right for whatever you are making.
Once your sheets are made
to your desired thinness then you can either mover forward making ravioli or
run the sheets through the fettucine cutter or the spaghetti cutter. Flour the
cutters before you use them so the dough does not stick. Do not let the pasta
sheets dry before you use the fettucine or spaghetti cutters. Once your
fettucine or spaghetti is cut you can swirl them in mounds on a lightly floured
tray.
Once made you can drop the
pasta into the boiling water and the fresh pasta will cook quickly – about 3-4
minutes and it will be done. Don’t overcook – you want to pasta to be firm but
cooked – el dente. Drizzle with olive oil and or butter and grate some
parmigiana-reggiano cheese and you have the basics….. From there you can
endlessly explore. Trust me you will be in pasta heaven!!!!
I
will be adding more recipes in the weeks and months ahead from raviolis to
special recipes from friends, and chefs so stay tuned.
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