Today, we set out on learning to make pasta. We hired Maribel of Taste of Italy to spend the day showing us the markets and teaching the finer things about cooking Italian pasta.  We started the morning bright and early at 9am to walk around the market to see what was fresh and decide the menu for the day.

Based on the vegetables we decided on artichokes, fava beans and peas, and roasted butternut squash.  After making our purchases we headed back to Maribel’s apartment to get started on lunch.  First step is making the pasta.  What was nice about the course is Sara and I basically did everything so we could really learn. While making the pasta was probably the hardest part, it wasn’t really that bad.  Based on our dishes we decided to make three eggs worth of pasta.  Sara made one egg while I made two.  Mixing the egg with the flour we got to kneading.  First by fork, then by scraper and finally by hand.  The key is that your hands are warm so you want to wait as long as possible to use them.  Once we were done kneading, the dough needed some rest.

‘While the dough rested, we got to pealing the fava beans and peas.  With three of us it didn’t take much time.  Then we got to rolling out the pasta.  This was by far the hardest part.  Getting the dough to paper thin without tearing or making holes.  Once it got to be so big, the only way to rotate it was to role it on the the pin.  Because I had two eggs I had to use the meter wide rolling pin. This got to be quite large and I was very nervous I would mess it up.  Luckily I didn’t.

With our dough rolled out, it was time to pasta.  The first pasta we made was tortelloni with roasted butternut squash, Parmesan and nutmeg.  Look how good they look!  Next we made bow tie pasta for our fava beans and pea pasta.  Finally we made tagelotelli for our sautéed artichokes.  

After getting everything all prepared we feasted. It was all so good!