Gaub Blog: Making Pasta (and other goodies)

I have recently started trying to make pasta by hand. At some point I hope to be able to do every step by hand. Currently I use a pasta roller I got for my birthday to roll out the sheets. My goal is to do it with my large rolling pin. But I want to get the steps down before I put all of that time into it.

Here Ella is watching me make the first batch. I went with Farfalle (bow ties) because it seemed relatively easy to make by hand as I dont have a pasta cutter. I think it rolled out a little thin for this shape, but it was delicate and delicious.

The next shape I tried was Orecchiette, or "little ears". I wanted to try something a little more substantial for a pasta salad. It turned out to have a texture similar to gnocchi and may have been a little thick cold (in the pasta salad), but was still tasty.
I didnt get any pics of it, unfortunately.

My most recent attempt was ravioli. It was hard. I ended up throwing out at least half of it because it was so sticky and did not want to pull apart. I learned I needed a whole lot more flour to keep them from getting so sticky.

Here is a picture of the ravioli after I rolled it out. I made large sheets of pasta, spread it with the filling (ricotta, spinach, goat cheese, and garlic), then rolled over it with the ravioli pin to make the shapes. And I also decided to pull out my "pasta board" for this batch.

I then took a pasta cutter to cut out the individual pieces and laid them out to dry. This round was sticky and hard to pull apart without ripping them.

By the end, I learned more flour was the key.

We had ravioli for dinner that night (in appropriate dishes). They were very yummy and very delicate. I think next time I will roll out the pasta thicker to give it a more substantial bite.