Fresh Pasta
A few months ago, we picked up one of those Imperia Pasta Machine at Williams-Sonoma, as part of a gift certificate we had left over from the wedding. (As a sidenote, I find W-S as possibly the most overpriced kitchen supply store in the universe. I tend to like using Amazon for these things as well as restaurant supply stores. In Cleveland, the closest restaurant supply store I’ve found with a public showroom is Dean Supply Company, which is a ten-minute drive away.) It’s basically a roller for dough, with cutters on the other side to make ribbon pasta from the rolled dough. There’s an optional motor that can be attached to thing, but what fun is that?
We’ve only used it twice so far, since working with dough tends to generate a mess, at least for me. The first time, the pasta generally came out very nicely, except for noodles that stuck together since I wasn’t careful enough with using flour to keep them from sticking. The second time (last night), I think the dough was a little dry, either from less than careful handling after processing through the machine, or originally, because I was a little off on the egg-flour ratio and didn’t compensate by using a bit of water. (According to the machine’s instructions, 2-1/4 cups of flour to 3 eggs. Other recipes I’ve found online call for 1-1 ratio of cups-of-flour to eggs, but I found the dough to be too dry in this case. I suppose I could have fiddled by using some water.) I’ve hand-cut the pasta so far, rather than using the machine’s cutters. This is partially out of preference for not wanting to deal with putting the dough through the machine another time, and also because I like the look of the wide, hand-cut ribbons.
The Amazon page on this product also has a bunch of tips from owners that I’ll try next time.
Anyway, last night’s dinner was the fresh pasta tossed with shrimp, mushrooms, and tomatoes/onion/garlic/basil, with a side of brussel sprouts sauteed in balsamic vinegar and broiled lobster tails. Dessert was this cheesecake, but with a thick glaze of melted chocolate and whipping cream (1 cup chocolate chips + 1/2-cup whipping cream, over a double-boiler, pour on the cooled-off cheesecake, before everything goes in the fridge for a few hours).
(I should have gone to the gym today, but there’s a judo class this evening.)