Kathy Henry wrote:
thanks for the recipe, Em. Now could I bother you for the pasta recipe? Do you use your pasta recipe for all pasta?
TIA
Kathy
Hi Kathy. Sure thing, it's no bother. I use my FP to make pasta dough, and always use the same recipe for everything. The KAF pasta blend is great, but now I buy what's in it individually and make my own mix to make it less pricey. I make enough of the mix at one time to fill a canister, let's say with 6 cups of A-P, 3 cups of durum flour, and 3 cups of semolina. (I buy the durum and semolina from KAF when I can get free shipping, but of course Semolina is available from a lot of sources. And just A-P will of course work fine, but the combo gives it a really tender bite (if that makes sense) and at the same time more of a silky feel, IMO.
So when I'm ready to make it, I put 3 cups of the flour mix in my FP and 4 large eggs. Then I run the FP for a few seconds to combine it, and then I drizzle anywhere between 2 to 4 T. water in it while the FP is running, until it forms a ball that starts banging around the side of the FP. Sometimes the dough rises up a little off the bottom and won't form into a ball, and in those cases I just stop it and push the dough down with a spoon or whatever and add a bit more water and run it again. (And it doesn't need to all be in a ball, just most of it.) Then I dump it onto a lightly-floured surface and knead it for just a minute or so and then wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for a half hour or so. Then it's ready to roll or refrigerate. That makes about a pound and a half of pasta dough.
One great thing about it is that once you make the dough and roll it and cook it, you don't have to use it right away. When I made it last weekend, I had quite a bit of the cooked pasta leftover, so I put them between parchment in an airtight container, and put a damp paper towel above the top sheet of parchment, and it kept perfectly for 3 days. Then I made more cannelloni filling and did another batch for a friend. This was her reply (totally due to the recipe/homemade pasta, not any credit on my part). I really got a kick out of it.
"I thought we were friends. You have been holding out on me. WHY HAVE I NOT HAD THIS BEFORE??"
Emilie