
Monday, May 18 2009
All-Clad Pasta Pentola with Stainless Steel Insert - Save 30% at Cooking.com! (now $227.50) Our Italian friends came to visit today and filled their lungs with fresh country air. and admired the views across paddocks to a stand of native bush and watched our hens scratching in the garden. How many eggs do they lay he asked. Suddenly he sat up straight. You gotta pasta machine ? I emerged from the pantry dusting off a long forgotten box with a (thank goodness) Italian pasta making machine covered in the remains of my last pasta making session from long ago that I tried discreetly, and unsuccessfully, to dust off before he could see it. He leaned forward in disbelief. Its an excellent machine he muttered and stared at me in amazement. Its almost new, barely used he said peering at it - in disbelief, again. And its dusty - you need to clean it. I looked at it with some embarrassment now. It was beginning to look extremely dusty. Pasta making is so easy, so easy, you have a goldmine here he said. Barely able to contain his excitement he talked nonstop of how to make home made fresh pasta, how simple it was to make and how we could have a never ending supply of freshly made, economical pasta all the time shaking his head at us -a pasta machine on the shelf - unused, unheard of for them. I was almost sorry I had hauled the box out. What is the recipe I asked. Recipe, recipe ? You don't need a recipe he scoffed. Just make one small pile of flour with a dent in the middle and put in two eggs and slowly,slowly, bring the flour into the egg. Leaning back thinking, he added you might need some water too. When I pressed him for the amount, he said it depended, then seeing the look on my face added about two fingers worth! My friend had been a chef, restaurant owner and baker - he probably made pasta on autopilot. Anyone can make it, a child could to it, you have eggs, you have flour and you have the machine. You have a goldmine he said again, looking puzzled as to why we had not thought of it before and shrugged. We sat down to eat lunch and discuss food - of course - what else. Great food and good conversation was followed by our friend diving into an armchair to take a short rest where he promptly went to sleep. His job was done. The Recipe Kiwi Style
Our friends make a variety of pasta at home, including Ravioli and Gnocchi by hand and I often saw it drying under a tea towel or cloth but now I pay a lot more attention it did come out fresh and delicious and I had to agree hat it was a quick and easy recipe even if I had to prise an actual recipe out of him. I wonder if I can prise that pasta sauce recipe out of him next time? I am definitely going to ask them for more ideas and we smile every time we eat our own freshly made pasta at the memory of that conversation. And yes, I do dust off my pasta machine after making it. after all I might have it inspected.
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