Dear Pasta, I've Missed You
Is the sauce supposed to separate?
My first experience with pasta was in a dining hall at Williams. Surrounded by teammates who couldn’t believe I’d never eaten any configuration of noodles and sauce, I tried the anemic penne and its watery tomato companion.
To be honest, it tasted metallic and mostly fell off my fork but I was intrigued and I kinda liked it? Seeing as though pizza was one of my primary food groups, piling noodles with red sauce and cheese wasn’t so far off. It became one of a few things that fueled my multiple seasons of athletics.
How does everything taste so good?
And then I went to Italy. I spent a year in Italy thanks to study abroad and a grant to do thesis research. And although my art historical research was the focus, the biggest boon from this time was my new passion for actual, real, food.
Italy will do that to you. How can you pass through multiple markets where apples and strawberries glittered like candy and not dive face first into the whole pile?
This of course, is coming from the person who swore anything that came from the ground which wasn’t a potato.
So yes, this year of my life where I chomped on pink lady apples and sucked the juice from a ripe blood orange blew my goddamn mind. And that is to say nothing of my newfound passion for the morning espresso.
Fare una piscina di uovo…?
Ana Rita, the administrative head of the program and surrogate mother for all of us Cornell students, spent an evening teaching us all how to make pasta.
Most of the students drank the cheap wine and stayed away from the table but I loved the feeling of working something so simple in my hands. I watched as she said," “And then io fare una piscina di uovo,” aka make a pool for your eggs out of flour. Then she jumped right in with her fingers, swirling the eggs in laps until they all broke down and swam in one yellowy mass. She pushed the flour in and the dough came together almost instantly.
Is there a way to do this sans wheat?
That night’s pasta and every other night I had fresh pasta in Italy, I remember wondering how to make something so achingly delicious and simple. I’d had no idea what I was missing until I closed my eyes and just tasted the simple tomato sauce, sheets of parmesan, and tender noodles.
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to replicate that moment. Pasta, croissants etc. are all in that network of bread products that need to be either airy or worked over without falling apart- characteristics of the protein gluten and thus difficult to replicate without said protein.
And then my sister gave me a pasta maker for my birthday and my boyfriend happened to be here for the weekend and I got to thinking- it was about time I made pasta that makes you dance-wiggle in your seat with happiness.
GF Pasta Dough
1.5 C of AP GF Flour (I make my own blend but it’s pretty close to Bob’s!)
1/2C of Tapioca Starch
1 tsp xanthan gum
Salt
4 whole eggs plus one egg yolk
Directions
Grab a big bowl and sift all of the dry ingredients together. Put a pot of water on your stove to boil.
Make a “well” in the flour. AKA make a donut shape with the flour and crack the eggs in the middle.
Use a your hand or a wooden spoon to mix the eggs together.
Incorporate the flour into the eggs until it looks like a dough.
Flour your work surface and knead the dough a few times. Then separate it into quarters.
Take one quarter and put the rest aside. Cut that quarter in half and press both halves a little flatter.
Turn your pasta machine onto setting two and run the dough through. Repeat until all sections of the dough are flattened.
Cut each dough sheet in half and run through the fettuccine maker also on setting 2.
Drop your fettuccine in the pot of salted water for 2-3 minutes. Drain and add to the sauce you’ve been simmering right next door. Voila!