Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Chestnut Pasta Party for One

It's a rainy night here in New York City. I hurried home and realized I had nothing for dinner. ...Or did I?

Hiding in the freezer was some chestnut pasta dough. Several weeks ago, I made chestnut flour pappardelle for dinner, but the batch was too big for that evening. In Italy, I learned that fresh pasta dough can be frozen with no ill effects, so we froze it.

Fast forward to tonight:
 Cutting fettuccini

 Tiny noodle nests 

 Going for a quick dip...

 Fresh pasta only needs 2 minutes to cook. 
Totally makes up for the hands-on time.

 The sparse toppings I was able to rustle up: 
Olive oil pressed this October at Villa Campestri 
Crumbled blue cheese
Some chopped celery leaves for color. 
Did I mention the fridge was nearly empty? 

 But it all turned out pretty damn delicious. 



Easy Pasta Ratio Rules:
For every one egg, use 100g of flour.
Also, one egg = one portion.
So if you have 10 people coming over for dinner, use 10 eggs and 1kg of flour.
If you want to use chestnut flour like I did for tonight's fettuccini, use 50/50 chestnut flour and Tipo 0 pasta flour.

Thanks to the boys in the Villa Campestri Restaurant in Vicchio di Mugello for all the pasta knowledge. Grazie infinite Jerry e Samuele!