Handcut Homemade Pasta Part 2

Read Part 1 Here

I had a mild flu or a bad sinus cold, because yesterday I was forced to work from home. Unfortunately, Thursdays are crazy for me in the office, so I didn’t get a chance to upload anything from Wednesday night. I literally worked straight from 8am to 4pm, when I finished email campaign deployments and fell into bed until Ryan came home. We had delicious Mexican from our favorite bodega.

On Wednesday night, we boiled the pasta I made the night before (and froze) and boiled it frozen in the pot, using chopsticks to gently loosen the noodles. The noodles made the water in the pot turn a cloudy white, probably from the generous amounts of flour. I was afraid that we would too easily overcook fresh pasta noodles. However, maybe because it was frozen, but it took a while to soften them. In fact, in the end, we cooked them for good couple of minutes over what we would cook dry pasta. The pasta was still aldente.

On the side, Ryan sauteed olive oil, garlic, and tapenade into a simple sauce, which he covered the cooked noodles with. Ryan mixed soft garlic and pepper goat cheese we had, which added a nice subtle creaminess and depth of flavor. (We didn’t have any hard cheeses that night to grate over it)

The noodles I cut were around 7 millimeters by 2-5 milimeters, since I cut the noodles by hand. It also didn’t help that I didn’t have a rolling pin and I used a long large salt bottle. I got the whole dough as thin as 5-7 millimeters (thicker in the middle) and cut as thing as I could, around 2-3 millimeters each. The pasta ended up expanding quite a bit, as you can see in that picture. The texture was still chewy and springy. The noodles became the size of udon noodles, actually. If at all possible, I would cut them even smaller. (or roll them thinner)

Since the pasta itself had a lot of character, using some garlic, tapenade, and cheese was the perfect solution. I wouldn’t make any caviar (tarako) pasta with these noodles. For that sauce, I would make pasta with extra yolks, so the whole thing is creamy and delicious.

Umi: It has Rosemary, minced garlic, and thyme.
Ryan: Look at you and your fancy shmancy pasta!
Umi: That’s how I roll!