I’m currently obsessed with making pasta. I haven’t made pasta in years, but I started watching Pasta Grannies a few weeks ago, and now I’m obsessed with making it. I asked for this pasta board for my birthday, and lo and behold…my wonderful mother-in-law got it for me! So now I’m dying to make pasta and become a Pasta Auntie (because I’m not a Grannie!). I’ve been researching recipes like crazy, even searching Italian sites and using Google Translate to see if I can learn anything. I’m obsessed.
Serious Eats has some theories and Niki Achitoff-Gray has done a lot of research already. I considered making her recipe, but she landed on an egg pasta recipe and I want to make an eggless version. I never knew you could make homemade pasta without eggs until I watched Pasta Grannies, but now that I know you can, I’m obsessed with it. So I did more research and I found this recipe from Massimo Bruno Kitchen Studio for Maccheroni Al Ferro With Porcini Mushroom & Sausage Ragù. It met three of my criteria: 1) it’s eggless; 2) it uses semolina flour (that’s what I have on hand); and 3) it includes a recipe for a sauce to use for the pasta. And it looks delicious!
I started by dragging my huge, beautiful wood pasta board out of the pantry and had to get Tim to help me put it on the counter. Because it’s HUGE!. But it’s beautiful. And it made making the pasta a pleasure. Once the board was in place, I placed 1 cup of semolina flour on the board. Then I made a well and added about 1/3 cup of warm water and 1 tablespoon of oil.
The recipe called for 1/2 cup of water, but I couldn’t add it all to the well or it would have spilled over the sides. I eventually continued to add more water, but didn’t need the full 1/2 cup. I gradually began mixing the water and flour, combining it slowly so it wouldn’t make too big of a mess.
On Pasta Grannies, the Grannies are able to get the flour and water to all come together into a smooth beautiful dough that cleans the board. I didn’t think there was a chance that would work for me. But I kept slowly bringing the dough together and what do you know…it worked!
Next, I divided the dough into four pieces and rolled them into long snakes, kindergarten -style. Turns out rolling dough into snakes wasn’t quite as easy as I remembered. I struggled to keep the first couple of snakes even, and accidentally broke one and had to patch it back together. But by the third I was getting the hang of it and by the fourth, I had it figured out. Turns out, everything I need to know I really did learn in kindergarten.
- Pasta snakes
Next, it’s time to cut and shape the pasta. First, you cut the snakes into 1-inch pieces. Then you take each 1-inch piece and roll it around the outside of a pasta rod. Now, this is (currently) something that I don’t have. In the Massimo Bruno video, it looks like he’s using a bamboo skewer to roll the pasta. So when I was shopping this morning, I picked some up thinking that it would be as simple as that. I started the process and quickly found out that my pasta was sticking to the bamboo skewers. No bueno.
Rolling the pasta onto the skewers was easy peasy. But getting it to slide off was impossible. I whined about it told Tim about it, and he suggested using part of a hanger. He found one that wasn’t painted and cut a perfectly functional pasta rod for me. Unfortunately, I was so excited about how well it worked, I forgot to take a picture. So you’ll have to wait till my next post about pasta to see it. But I got so good at rolling the maccheroni, that I was able to roll two at a time on one rolling rod. See…I am a Pasta Auntie!
I’m so happy with the way it turned out. I cooked it for about 5 minutes in heavily salted water. I think I got some of them a little too thick, so I have to watch that next time. And might have to cut back on the cooking time if I can get them thinner.
Please check out Massimo Bruno’s website for the recipe. It was so delicious we couldn’t stop eating it. You can see the finished dish below. Can’t wait to make it again!
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