Fresh Pasta

Monica and Tyson rolling the dough.

Sunday afternoon was a very productive day in the kitchen. Monica, Tyson and Carine helped me prepare and perfect pasta dough and fillings that I hope to use in an upcoming Pasta Lesson. We made one dough using all semolina flour, two using all-purpose flour, and the fourth recipe was taken from the French Laundry cookbook and uses lots of egg yolks and milk of all things.

We found that the semolina dough was hard and difficult to work with, and decided that mixing half semolina and half all-purpose flour might give us a better result. The recipes using all purpose flour worked well and gave us nice pasta dough to work with. The French Laundry was a nice dough which I found very easy to work with. But it doesn’t matter how many times I make pasta, I never seem to be able to incorporate all the flour into the dough. There’s always some left over, sometimes as much as 20%. This however, doesn’t seem to have a negative affect on the end product.

We did find however that by mixing slowly, more flour was absorbed into the dough. Tyson wins the prize for the most patience, stirring the flour into the eggs little, by little, by little. I think he stirred for over 20 minutes before he had a firm dough, but there was only about 5% of his flour that he couldn’t mix into the dough.

We also made two fillings for our pasta, cheese and butternut squash. They were both very tasty but I think the squash was the most popular. The mild, sweet flavour of the squash is a perfect vehicle for carrying other flavours, especially herbs. For this version we added Mascarpone cheese and fresh dill to the squash for a really tasty filling.

All and all it was a great afternoon. It’s nice to spend time with family and friends making something that everyone can enjoy. The pasta turned out really nicely, we had a great meal, we learned a bit more about pasta making and we had fun! What more could you ask for?

Here are two recipes that we worked out, one for dough and one for filling:

Pasta Dough

1 ½  cups flour

1/2 cup semolina flour
3 eggs

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

1. Pour the flour onto a clean smooth work area.
2. Make a well in the center, large enough to hold the eggs.
3. Beat the eggs together and pour them into the well. Sprinkle in the salt and add the oil.
4. Begin mixing the dough by drawing flour from into the egg in the center, bringing more and more flour in to make the dough.
5. If the dough is too dry and does not come together, you may need to sprinkle a little cold water over it. If the dough is too moist and becomes sticky, you may have to add a bit of flour.
6. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic.
7. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Butternut Squash Filling

1/2-3/4 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped (about 1 lb)

2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

¼ cup grated parmesan

¼ cup fresh dill leaves

salt and pepper           

1. Steam the squash until easily pierced with a fork.
2. Mash the squash, add the butter, mascarpone and parmesan cheese and salt and pepper.
3. Cool.

To Make the Ravioli

1. Cut out an even number of circles in the dough.
2. Drop a spoonful of filling in the center of each circle, moisten edges with water, and cover with a separate circle.
3. Pinch edges together, and leave ravioli dry for about 2 hrs, and refrigerate until needed.
4. Cook ravioli in boiling salted water for about 3 or 4 minutes, drain, and serve with preferred sauce.