April 30, 2009

Fresh Pasta

Reasons chickens are better than roosters:

1- Chickens lay eggs.

2- Chickens don’t crow at 3am.

We had a rooster once. Dad thought it would be a good idea to get a silkie chicken and rooster pair. The logic was that we thought we would end up with some eggs and the pair of them would look pretty neat. What he did not account for was the fact that our rooster would turn out to be deranged. He had no clue what time of day or night it was and would crow for hours on end in the middle of the night. I hated that rooster. One day Dad had finally had enough of him too and took the pair out to a friend’s farm where the rooster could crow as much as he wanted without robbing us of sleep and sanity. Now we have six chickens and although I’m not sure why Dad thought we needed SIX of them, I like them a whole lot better than that stupid rooster. Six chickens, however, equal up to six eggs a day. That means I have to continuously come up with ways to use them up.

Besides ice cream, one of my favourite ways to use eggs is by making homemade pasta. Michael Ruhlman, in his new book Ratio gives this easy to remember recipe for basic pasta dough:

Pasta Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts egg

I find measuring by weight a whole lot easier than by volume or piece, especially if some of the eggs your chickens are laying are double yolkers. But for those of you that don’t have a scale, (just go buy one, seriously) Ruhlman says that ratio works out to approximately 1 cup flour : 2 eggs. I use 00 flour when making pasta, (an Italian fine grind) and I find it works the best. Once you’ve got your pasta dough made there’s no end to the things you can do with it. I would be happy eating fresh pasta with lots of butter and a little cheese but since I was cooking for others I thought it would probably be better to make a meal of it. So I made a pesto sauce and also fried up some green onions, red peppers, bacon, shrimp and scallops. Tossed the whole thing together and there was dinner. Very good dinner.

14 comments:

haya (living and learning) said...

i am so jealous of you and your fresh eggs and your fresh pasta.

YUM.

anna said...

Fresh pasta is so awesome! I think it's a lot of fun to make and eating it fresh feels rewarding, whereas eating dried pasta feels like an unsatisfying cop-out.

Dragon said...

There is nothing better than fresh homeade pasta. Yours looks amazing.

breadchick said...

Alright, this is two times this week we've been on the same wavelength. First it was math and today it is pasta!

Of course mine is from a box while yours is from glorious fresh eggs.

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

For some reason I've convinced myself that making pasta from scratch is too hard or too time-consuming, so I've got a pasta roller sitting in the deep recesses of the pantry and haven't used it for years. Thanks for the reminder that making fresh pasta is worth doing!

Deborah said...

I would LOVE fresh eggs every day! (And a pasta attachment for my Kitchen Aid, for that matter...)

Cookie baker Lynn said...

Very good dinner indeed. Nothing beats fresh pasta. Except maybe homemade ice cream. Tough call.

Michelle @ Find Your Balance said...

Mmm I haven't made homemade pasta in forever. I gotta get back to that!

Kristen said...

I really should make homemade pasta. I love it!
We had, of all things when I was growing up, peacocks. Talk about the most annoying sound outside your window all hours of the night/day. Grrrr...

Scott at Real Epicurean said...

I made fresh pasta on my blog recently, too - great minds think alike!

It's a lot quicker than most people think and well worth the effort.

Matt said...

i remember making spinach pasta in Chef Wrights class..i thought I lost it then found it a couple of days later in my toolkit...needless to say i didnt eat it...but fresh pasta is amazing and i have been saying i am going to make it at home for a while...i think it is time

creampuff said...

Hey my buddy! How are you??? I miss you! I've been meaning to e-mail you forever! But when I saw this post I had to say something because our next-door-neighbour has a rooster and I feel your pain. Believe me!

I want chickens but we don't have the space for them. One day ...

Big hug!

Pam said...

I love fresh pasta but have never made my own. I can't wait to try.

Marta said...

I love making fresh pasta as well, such a difference from dried pasta! Plsu, it's so cool to experiment with different additives: spinach, tomatoes, beets, peppers, etc.
This looks great!