Original recipe:
Ana
Andrea
Bere
Cori
Juli
Click on any of the pictures for more details
Have you done this recipe before?
Tools for the recipe: kitchen knife, rolling pin
Ingredient substitute: glutten-free flour, 8 Tbs of water
Experience doing the recipe: My skills to make pasta are definitively overrated. Although this recipe was super simple, I faced some challenges with the kitchen tools and the ingredients.
I had to substitute regular flour with gluten-free flour. You might think flour is flour but, once you make the flour/salt mount and start adding that beating egg, the dough does not come together. It turns into this grainy mix almost like corn meal, yes even the color becomes yellowish. I decided to gradually add the 1-2 Tbs of water but, these did not help. So I took a cup filled it with water and picked up a ¼ measuring spoon. I added ¼ of a tbs of water until I was able to form a ball. This took me way more than the 3-4 minutes instructed and a total of 8 Tbs spoons of water. Even I had the expected block of dough, it was still very crumbly. Against directions I decided to set my dough in the refrigerator for 5 min and see if it will come altogether.
After the 5 min I started working the dough on the counter with very little flour. Since I do not have a pasta kneading machine I used a non-stick rolling pin to roll-out my pasta dough. To make sure the thickness was even I used a non-stick pan as a lever. I rolled this out as thin as the dough permitted/started falling apart. I used a kitchen knife to cut long “fettuccine” strips. One I let it dried I cooked them like regular pasta: boiling salted/oiled water. It took about 14min to have an al-dente consistency like. I decided to dress the pasta with Olive oil, red pepper flakes, Parmesan cheese, spinach leaves, and some fresh tomatoes as I cannot have regular pasta sauce.
Would you try the recipe again?
I never thought I would be making pasta if it wasn’t for this challenge. But here it goes…
Have you done this before? I hadn’t done this recipe before and had never attempted to make pasta from scratch.
Tools for the recipe: measuring cups, 2 bowls, a wine bottle( i had no rolling pin), a shot glass, pizza cutter, wooden spoon & 2 pots
Ingredient substitute: I substituted the flour with gluten free because i didn’t have an all purpose flour with gluten.
Experience doing the recipe: it was fun, I pictured myself in Italy and played some music in the background to make that come alive. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be its and easy recipe to make the hardest part was making the dough softer I added 1 tablespoon of olive oil to help and also cutting it into thinner strips so that it was long pasta and not thick noodles. Also the recipe didn’t say how long to cook it for so I left it like a normal pasta 10-11 minutes cooking and made a tomato base salsa from scratch with broccoli and some ground turkey. Overall it was a fun experiment to make and excited for the next one.
Would you try doing the recipe again? I’m not sure if I would try it again for myself but my husband loved it and wants me to make it again in the future so I guess it turned out good.
Have you done this recipe before? Nope
Tools for the recipe: Knife, counter and a lot of patience
Ingredient substitute: Followed recipe to the T
Experience doing the recipe: I actually had a lot of fun doing the pasta. Definitely tested my patience but in a good way.
The recipe was very easy to make, when we first decided to go for the pasta, I was a little intimidated but it turns out making the dough was not that bad. What tested my patience was the stretching and cutting part. I am a little bit of a perfectionist, so even though I didn’t have the correct tools or experience to make the pasta, I wanted it to come out perfectly. I cut the dough in two and decided to attack in parts. I kept stretching and cutting and stretching and cutting. Again, in my head the stands needed to be perfectly even and I wasn’t able to do it perfectly but I am happy with the results. The recipe did not have instructions on the cooking part so I boiled a pot with water, olive oil and salt and cooked half of what came out for about 10 minutes and froze the other half.
After I drained the pasta, I grabbed the same pot I used to cook the pasta and put some garlic, olive oil and shrimp to cook. After the shrimp was fully cooked, I added a little bit of basil pesto and tossed the pasta in. After mixing everything up, I put it in my bowl and topped it off with some Parm. Easy dinner, I am looking forward to see how easy/hard it will be to make the pasta I put in the freezer.
Would you try the recipe again? Absolutely, maybe make some shapes or raviolis or (if I am feeling very adventurous) lasagna
Have you done this recipe before? I have never done pasta from scratch but, I do feel confident in the “baking” area of the kitchen.
Tools for the recipe:
Ingredient substitute: I followed the recipe all along
Experience doing the recipe: When we got the recipe to make pasta this week, I am not going to lie, I got very excited; I am all about making something that scares me enough to challenge myself to do it.
My first impression was that the dough was kind of hard, and not really giving, doubted for a while that it will be able to stretch it enough to make pasta!
Took me a while to stretch but the dough gave in, with enough flour around it and under, I rolled the dough (a trick I learned when making tequeños) and cut it as fine as I thought I could.
Meanwhile I had boiling water, and threw the pasta in, wasn’t sure how long to boil it and I left it for about five minutes, tried it and clearly was ready.
Drained it, and tried it with a little butter “so it doesn’t stick” something I do after my mother, and it was good, a little too thick for my taste (mental note for future reference when making it again) but good.
I do not tend to make pasta at home regularly, but if I do, I always like to have it with tomato sauce and a GOOD Parmesan cheese.
So I went ahead and make a “quick” tomato pasta sauce that I learned from my second-mom Pati and truly made the whole meal delicious. Topped it with fresh Parmesan cheese and some chopped basil leaves from my herb garden (can you call it a garden if its some pots of herbs on the window of your studio apartment?) Oh well, for me that made the difference on the dish.
Would you try the recipe again? I think I would try it again, try to cut it a bit fine-er, and maybe cook it for a little longer!
