Life and Cooking in Slow Motion

Hello!  Today, not much knitting (though I am making progress on my Thistle Hat by Liz Merino), just lots of cooking.

I spent yesterday with two of my sisters (S and K) and my cousin's wife (J) at our Auntie J's house learning how to make three of my Italian Grandmother's (Noni) pasta specialties.

We drove about 1 hour south with all of the cousins.  The kids swam, played hide and go seek, and relaxed, while the Aunts worked in the kitchen.

Auntie J and Uncle G live in this amazing house with a fantastic farm kitchen, perfect for lots of cooks.

For the pasta, we used the recipe on the bag of Semolina Flour

Flour, egg, water,  olive oil, and salt.

Mix it with a fork and then your hands until it holds together.

Then the fun begins.  Auntie J uses an Imperia Pasta Maker to both knead and roll the pasta dough.

So in small batches, you roll the dough through the widest setting on the machine, adding flour if it is sticky.  Auntie J's advice is to NEVER put water on the machine or you will get hard paste that will never come off.  To clean the machine, she blows on it and wipes with a dry cloth.

We rolled the dough on the widest setting (1) then a bit thinner (3)

We folded the dough in half or in thirds, and started again on the widest setting.

You do this again and again and again and again and again until the dough is completely smooth, like parchment.

When it has no grain at all, is perfectly smooth, you gradually make the pasta strip thinner and thinner by cranking it through the maker at higher and higher settings until you hit 6.

The pasta should be a smooth, almost translucent strip.

 We folded the pasta strip in half, marked the halfway point and opened it back up on the table.  Then, dotted half with ravioli filling. 

The filling can be just about anything.  We used one made of equal parts cooked orange yam, or sweet potato, cooked sweet Italian sausage,  and parmesan cheese pureed until smooth.

Well, sort of smooth.
Then you fold over the dough, and seal in each bump of filling.

Auntie J used this cool wheel thingy (the official name!) to both cut and seal each ravioli square.

Ok, it's really called a fluted pastry and pasta wheel.
That's it!  Cook them for a few minutes, not very long at all in boiling water with some bouillon

Serve with sauce and more cheese.

Enjoy!

A special thanks to Auntie J for bringing back our Noni (Italian Grandmother) for a bit.  It was a wonderful afternoon.  My sister, S, said, "I don't have a long bucket list, but learning how to make Noni's pasta with Auntie J is definitely at the top.  Now we can cross this one off."

And I just want to say that while I was a bit slow with the pasta maker, Cousin J was amazing.  She was way the fastest to pick up the techniques and had great looking smooth pasta in no time.  We were all jealous.

Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
Shaping the planet with my Noni's Ravioli