Pasta – Beyond Umami https://www.beyondumami.com/ Macarons, recipes, step by step guides and more Mon, 04 Apr 2016 03:13:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 Hand-rolling noodles https://www.beyondumami.com/2016/04/hand-rolling-noodles.html Mon, 04 Apr 2016 02:50:00 +0000 https://www.beyondumami.com/2016/04/hand-rolling-noodles.html A pile of hand-rolled and hand-cut noodles sitting on a bamboo cutting board.
Thanks for all your questions and feedback on my last post on making ramen noodles from scratch.
One of the questions that was asked was: “What if we don’t have a pasta roller, can we still make noodles?” 
YES, YOU CAN!
This post is going to be about a hand-rolling technique. I came across this during my attempts at making Soba Noodles (coming in a later post). Soba noodle making involves a series of complicated kneading, folds, and rolling which I won’t be covering in this post.
Instead of a pasta rolling machine you’ll need a rolling pin and a sharp knife (preferably one with a flat edge like a cleaver).
Follow the recipe for creating the dough for ramen (ver. 8) up to dividing your dough into 4 portions. The size of the portion I’m working with is about the size of a closed fist.
  1. Using a rolling pin and starting from the middle of the ball, roll out in both directions (e.g. middle upwards, middle downwards).
    A rolling pin pressed against a flattened disc of dough.
  2. Keep going until you can wrap the dough around the rolling pin about 1   1/2 times (it should definitely overlap) and you see a “tongue”.
    The ends of a flattened dough wrapped around a rolling pin but only slightly overlapping.
    This dough overlaps but not enough! Keep going!
    Noodle dough wrapped completely around a rolling pin with enough dough sticking out from under the rolling pin.
    Roll from middle out until you can wrap around your rolling pin and the dough sticks out like a tongue.
  3. The next step is to roll the rolling pin across while the dough is still wrapped around the rolling pin.
    Ramen noodle dough wrapped around the rolling pin a few times.
  4. When you reach the edge or end of your surface, don’t roll it back, instead drag the rolling pin back to the starting edge. If you roll back in the other direction your dough will unravel. It’s more efficient to roll only in one direction instead of back and forth.
  5. Keep doing this until you have the desired thinness (keep in mind that the noodle will double in thickness when it’s cooked). Using your hand, roll up the dough.Ramen noodle dough rolled up resting on a floured surface.
  6. With your sharpest flattest knife start slicing discs from the rolled up dough.Slightly tilt your knife so that the disc is separated from the roll.

    Close-up of knife about to slice through rolled up ramen noodle dough. The rolled up ramen noodle dough has a spiral of flour.
    A pile of sliced spiral discs of rolled up ramen dough.

  7.  Using your hands, unravel the discs of noodles into a pile.
    A pile of hand cut ramen noodle dough.
There you have it, hand-rolled, hand-cut ramen noodles without a pasta roller. Once you get used to the technique, it doesn’t take a significant longer amount of time (about 5-8 minutes more) than using the roller. The pasta roller is definitely more efficient compared to hand rolling but I’ve (secretly) tested this on Lillian and she didn’t notice the difference (in taste or texture) until I confessed.
As mentioned at the beginning, I came across this technique while trying to make soba noodles. I will continue to use this occasionally to practice my rolling technique for our pastas and ramen so that my soba noodle making skills will get better. One of the aspects that I’m working on is to maintain a uniformed rectangular shaped dough throughout the entire rolling process. In other words, the “tongue” should not be a pointed, it should be flat
and as wide as the rest of the dough. This will prevent weird
indentations in your dough.
Keep your questions coming!
]]> Ravioli Al Uovo Recipe https://www.beyondumami.com/2015/12/ravioli-al-uovo-recipe-and-giveaway.html https://www.beyondumami.com/2015/12/ravioli-al-uovo-recipe-and-giveaway.html#comments Wed, 23 Dec 2015 04:56:00 +0000 https://www.beyondumami.com/2015/12/ravioli-al-uovo-recipe-and-giveaway.html

I was looking through some of my archived photos and realized that I had a whole slew of photos that I had not yet blogged about! These home made Ravioli Al Uovo or sometimes called Uova da Raviolo (Ravioli with an Egg inside) pictures were a subset of these ‘forgotten’ photos. The reason we made these (during the summer of 2014!) was that our friend Addie was back in Edmonton and wanted to cook a meal together. As I recall, that summer we had already made these Ravioli Al Uovo once or twice since they were popping up in all sorts of food magazines and restaurants. Addie had been baking a lot of bread and cheese that summer, but hadn’t had a chance yet to make these Ravioli Al Uovo.   

One fun “behind the scene” fact is that these photos aren’t actually taken at our place, but at a fellow food blogger’s home Michelle (over at The Tiffin Box). Addie was cat sitting at her place for a bit that summer (thanks Michelle for the gorgeous table and plates that show up in these photos). 

The ingredients for these delicious pockets of goodness are just a few, but when all combined together they can only be categorized as good food done right. You definitely need to make your own pasta for these Ravioli Al Uovo as fresh pasta just makes it taste that much better! We also used Heritage Eggs from our adopted chicken (you can read more about our experience here) for making these as the heritage eggs not only lend the dish their gorgeous golden yolk but make each bite taste wholesomely good.

Ingredients

  • One ball of Beyond Umami’s homemade pasta dough (with a handy Ratio Calculator for Eggs to Flour that Dan made)
  • Egg yolks (1 per ravioli)
  • 1-2 cups of Ricotta cheese (1 small tub)
  • 1 lemon 
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • freshly grated pecorino romano

Directions
  1. Scoop about 1 cup of ricotta cheese into a bowl. Squeeze the lemon juice from half a lemon into the ricotta. Add freshly cracked pepper and salt. You want the ricotta mixture to be slightly on the tart side (a bit more sour than you like). That way, the flavour of the ricotta will come through after being cooked.
  2. Separate a large piece of dough from the main ball of dough and wrap the rest up in food wrap. Roll the piece out on the pasta maker. In these photos we rolled the dough out to the second thinest setting which on our pasta machine is a “5”. If you roll the pasta dough out to 5, be sure to adequately flour your surfaces as well as the pasta sheets. Work quickly so that the pasta sheets will not dry out. Make two equal sheets of pasta. Liberally flour each side of dough including the surface you are working on.

  3. Spoon one heaping tablespoon of ricotta onto the pasta sheet and create a well in the middle of the filling. For this particular example, the pasta sheet was long enough to fit 3 large raviolis. Separate an egg yolk into a small bowl and gently transfer the yolk onto the ricotta; being careful to not break the yolk. Only separate egg yolks when you are ready to use them, otherwise the yolk will dry out and break. Also, it’s important that you lay your sheet on a well-floured surface because the ricotta is wet and will begin soaking through the sheet and can stick to your work surface making it very difficult to lift later on.
  4. Gently brush water around the filling. Dipping a finger in water and brushing the pasta sheet can work as well.
  5. Quickly lay the second sheet of pasta on top (In this picture they had folded the end piece back on top. Either method will work).
  6. Make a firm cut to separate each piece. Be careful to not puncture the pockets.
  7. Using a fork crimp the edges of the ravioli al uovo.
  8. In a pot of boiling water, gently slide the ravioli into the pot. Allow it to cook for 2 minutes (or until they float). With a slotted spoon gently transfer the ravioli to a plate. Garnish as you wish or in this picture we made a quick brown butter sage sauce to have with the Ravioli Al Uovo and some shavings of pecorino romano.

The test to see if you succeeded in making these Ravioli Al Uovo is that when you cut into the ravioli, the egg should still be runny and the texture should be creamy!

Food Notes:

  • You do need some familiarity with making fresh pasta from scratch including how to use a pasta maker.
  • Unlike regular pasta, you cannot make this ahead of time nor freeze the uncooked ravioli.
  • We found that each person will not be full after eating just one ravioli (or even two). However each ravioli is quite rich due to the egg yolk in the filling and the eggs in the pasta dough so you probably don’t want to serve more than one or two to each guests.

We really enjoyed making these Ravioli Al Uovo. The key to making this ravioli is about freshness and timing: too long in the pot and you will have hard boiled ravioli, too thin of a pasta dough and the yolk will leak out. However, it is a very impressive ravioli and quite tasty as well. Certainly worth the effort and sense of accomplishment from making this particular type of ravioli!

A Microplane Rotary Giveaway! 

Gourmet Buzz has graciously offered to give one of my Canadian readers a Microplane Rotary Grater! I have one of these as well and have been using my rotary grater every chance I can for the past 3 months! Not only do I use it to grate my favourite cheese onto my pastas, salads, and sunny side eggs but I have also used it for grating chocolate onto crepes! A major benefit of having a rotary grater of this type is that you don’t need to worry about accidentally grating your fingers. It also is super efficient at grating; especially when you need to grate two or three cups of hard cheeses for a recipe.

Mandatory Entry (+3): To enter, leave me a comment on this Ravioli Al Uovo blog post about your favourite Italian dish to make or eat at a restaurant (and if is at a restaurant – which one?). Please leave a valid email address in the Rafflecopter widget as this is how I will be contacting you regarding details of the prize. You must leave a comment (in the disqus widget) matching your rafflecopter name or your entry will be disqualified. Winner must answer a skill testing question before receiving the prize. Sorry, this contest is only for Canadian residents. Use the Rafflecopter widget to help track your mandatory entry and to also get additional entries!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

]]> https://www.beyondumami.com/2015/12/ravioli-al-uovo-recipe-and-giveaway.html/feed/ 24 Homemade Pasta – Made Easy! https://www.beyondumami.com/2015/07/homemade-pasta-made-easy.html Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:55:00 +0000 https://www.beyondumami.com/2015/07/homemade-pasta-made-easy.html Sheet of pasta going through a hand crank pasta maker
Whenever Dan and I invite guests over for their first meal at our place, we often serve up fresh pasta as our main starch. Guests are always surprised at not only how tasty fresh pasta is but also how quickly it can be made. This is because we usually complete the final preparation of rolling out the pasta, cutting, cooking, and dressing the pasta within minutes right before their eyes. 
Making fresh pasta at home is way easier than you think. In fact, you would be surprised to learn that the cooking time for fresh pasta is faster than waiting for the water to boil and cooking boxed pasta.
The one thing that we have found crucial to making pasta is a kitchen scale. This removes any of the guesswork and “feel” when you often read other pasta recipes. Using a kitchen scale also makes it much easier to increase the quantity of pasta you make with predictable results. 
Ingredients
  • Eggs
  • Flour

We make our pasta using an egg:flour ratio of 2:3 (two to three). This means that we usually weigh our eggs first, then multiply that weight by 1.5 to calculate how much flour to add. For example, when we weigh two eggs and the scale displays 60g, the amount of flour to mix in is 90g (1.5 x 60g = 90g). Dan says that this is a great chance to practice your math OR you can use this calculator that Dan made!

 

We find that 2 eggs is enough for the two of us but when we have guests over we usually use 5 medium sized eggs. 
Once you have your eggs and flour measured out, mix the eggs into the flour using the paddle hook in your Kitchen Aid for a few minutes until combined. Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and then wrap the dough tightly and let it sit in the fridge for about 20 minutes. This extra 20 minutes will make your dough consistency more even and also make it easier to roll.
Side view of the roll of pasta dough
Take small fist-sized chunks of the pasta dough, thread it through the pasta maker twice through each setting. I usually prefer a slightly thinner pasta so I start on setting 1 (on our pasta roller, the thickest setting is “1” meaning the rollers are furthest apart) and then run each sheet through until setting 6 (the rollers get closer with each setting). The higher the setting the thinner the pasta dough will be. 

Here the pasta sheet is going through the pasta maker. It is getting thinner.

If the pasta sheet gets sticky, lightly flour each sheet of pasta before running it through the pasta maker again. 

Once all the pasta sheets have been flattened to your preferred setting, switch the pasta maker to the cutting side. 
Place a plate underneath the pasta maker to catch the cut pasta. Ensure there is enough flour on the plate prior to cutting the pasta. We usually use the fettuccine setting to cut our pasta. 

Fresh cut pasta

While you are cutting the pasta, boil water in a heavy 5 quart pot. Add a pinch of salt to the water. Once the water is at a rolling boil, cook your fresh pasta for under 2 minutes. Stir occasionally. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly so be careful to not overcook it.

Pot of hot water with pasta inside cooking away.

Place a bowl underneath a colander and drain the pasta. We usually reserve some of the pasta water behind and then use it to coat the pasta. This will help the seasoning to stick to the pasta. We typically season our pasta with two tablespoons of truffle oil (we buy ours from the Italian Centre – look for the ElleEsse made in Italy bottle with chunks of truffle inside), fresh ground salt and pepper. Right before serving shave pecorino romano onto the pasta. Feel free to dress your pasta with pesto, red or white sauce. Regardless, the pasta will taste amazing!

Freshly cooked pasta drizzled with truffle oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper.
Enjoy your freshly made pasta! Once you have made fresh pasta, you really can’t go back! 
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