carbonara

I thank my papa for my DIY-determination in the kitchen.  As long as I remember he has  whipped up fresh bread, tofu from homegrown soybeans, cheese and yogurt from the cow in the yard, peanut butter from homegrown peanuts, fresh pressed apple cider, beer with hops he grew, sauerkraut, pickles; the list could go on and on.

One of the kitchen projects I have been long-intrigued by but had yet to tackle was pasta.  Many of you probably know from past posts that I’m not a huge pasta fan, but that’s only partly true.  I would always choose fresh bread over some run-of-the-mill dry boxed spaghetti but homemade pasta is a different story.

When a friend offered to show me how to turn flour and eggs into ribbons of perfectly tender and chewy pasta I was, of course, delighted.  He has made pasta in several restaurants and had a pasta company for a while, selling homemade ravioli to local restaurants.

Don’t forget plenty of salt! Some will be sacrificed to the cooking water…

The dough is kneaded by hand with more flour slowly added.

I was surprised by how quickly everything came together.  You do let the dough rest briefly between kneading but nothing like the rise time for bread.  My friend was once challenged to make and serve fresh pasta in under 30 minutes.  They were eating 27 minutes later.

More flour is gently incorporated as you slowly thin the dough to the desired size.  This is the part that looks the most fun and most challenging to me.

Carbonara!

With Pacific Cod, green beans, and garlic.

The truth is, I still haven’t made pasta.  I (wo)man’d the (iphone) camera* while my friend did all the work.  BUT I’m a visual learner and now I will have a much better understanding of the process when I tackle making pasta all by myself.

*blogger fail! I was seriously missing my camera!

Good eatin’.