Lemon Pepper Pasta

Not only did we make mozzarella today, we borrowed the pasta rollers for the KitchenAid from Jim's folks and made a batch of lemon pepper fettucine. The basic recipe is 2 cups flour, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup water (we could've substituted lemon juice for a bit of that water), the zest of one lemon, 1/2 teaspoon salt, a good grinding of black pepper, and 1 tablespoon olive oil.

Here's Hanna starting the pasta through the rollers:



She rolled the pasta through several times, adjusting the rollers tighter each time:



Here are the paper-thin pieces waiting for the next stage:



Then we changed to the cutting roller:



Here's the *nests* waiting for cooking:



Jim made a seafood sauce with butter, garlic, fresh garden chives and white wine with scallops and mussels to serve over the pasta.



We served this with fresh French bread and home-made mozzarella. Mmm, good.

KA forums

Jim went hunting for information online about the KitchenAid pasta extruders. KitchenAid has an entire forum to discuss issues with the machine and attachments. So maybe we will try this again. Not, however, today. :P

Here's a thread on making macaroni.
This thread is about spinach pasta and the proper dryness of the dough.
There's advice here about the extruder balling up the dough into big gloms.

KA--Pasta Extruder

I don't normally do things by the book. Sometimes that works, and other times it bites me. My first experiment with making pasta using the extruder on the Kitchen Aid was to use my spinach pasta recipe. Disaster. Just so much green glue, really. That was before I decided to start this blog, so you were saved from having to witness it.

Still, one trial doesn't mean the whole system is faulty. Chastened, we made pasta this week using the basic recipe that came with the machine. So here it is getting mixed. I definitely made sure the dough was much stiffer, all the flour it could hold!



These are the extruder options. From the top, clockwise: fettucine, macaroni, spaghettini, spaghetti, and lasagna extruders.



Here's how it (sort of) works. We chose fettucine, and you can see we're already in trouble!



While the dough had been resting, I made the sauce: a basic cheesy (using the lemon cheese) white sauce with hot Italian sausages in it.



I cooked the noodles while Jim continued extruding. This is the result:



So, were we happy with the process and the end result? Not really. The taste of the noodles was fine. Good, really. But getting there was a royal pain. As you can see from the photo of the extrusion, the noodles badly wanted to glom together. It was difficult to separate them to cook, and I tossed a few back at Jim to re-extrude because I couldn't get them apart. Such a light touch was needed--any pressure and they stuck firmer. I also threw out a few globs that cooked together and wouldn't separate. Also, I must say cleaning the KA after the whole thing is also a pain, though it was easier this time than with the spinach glue. I did toss all the parts in soapy water in the sink until after we'd eaten, but the hard-to-get-to spots were still--hard to get to.

Being gluttons for punishment, no doubt we'll try the macaroni and lasagna extruders yet some time. Generally speaking, though, I don't see this being the way we will normally get pasta for dinner. It took two people a solid half hour of labor to make enough pasta for four servings, not including clean-up. However, if we ever decide on a pasta night and find the cupboard is bare, we do have a possible solution.

I'm sad. I wanted to like it.