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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Storing Eggs in Pasta


The other great place to store your glut of eggs besides the fruit cake is in home made pasta.
You don't need to buy a machine but it is a good investment and does make the job of rolling easier.
I guess it enables you to get really nice fine spaghetti lengths too but mostly I make fettuccine and farfalle which can both be hand cut. 
In fact I think hand cut pasta looks charming and rustic and made with love.
The best thing for this job is a very inexpensive crinkle edge pastry cutting wheel.

  
I hang my lengths to dry over coat hangers suspended from the door knobs of the over head cupboards in the kitchen and the smaller pasta like farfalle I leave to dry on wire cake coolers. 


You can freeze your fresh pasta after it has dried for about an hour or dry it thoroughly for about 24hrs and store it in sealed glass jars in the pantry. It must be thoroughly dried before storage but will last at least a year in a cool dry cupboard sealed from vermin.


My Recipe
 allow 1 egg per serve
allow 2/3 cup of flour per egg
allow a ratio of 2 parts flour to 1 part fine semolina.

Therefore and for instance.....
for 4 people....
4 (large) eggs,  1 2/3cup of flour and 1 cup of fine semolina.

Mix the flour and make a well into which you crack the eggs and gradually work them into a dough. It will seem quite dry and crumbly at first but it will come together and I also like to rest it in a plastic bag or wrapped in a barely damp clean cloth. I break off portions at a time to work with leaving the rest wrapped up and somewhere cool.
There are so many options; lasagne sheet, extruded shapes, lengths or cut shapes.


With pasta in the cupboard you always have a meal on hand and it is a great way to store some of those eggs when they are coming thick and fast. A packet of home made pasta is also a wonderful gift from your store cupboard and welcome as a "house warming", "get well" or "congratulations new (tired) parents"

Remember to never wash your pasta machine, just brush it down with a dry pastry brush and store it in a dry cupboard.




7 comments:

  1. Hi Tanya

    What a great way to save those eggs! Um, just check your calculations, I think you are out on the flour to egg ratio - 2/3 cup per egg (.666 x 4 = 2.6 therefore 2 2/3 cups flour)... I think...

    We watched Masterchef the other night and we both agreed next free Sunday we have, we will make fettucine!


    Cheers - Joolz

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Uuum! Do the measurements look funny the way I typed them? it's a bit hard with the font I guess. The flour total is 2 2/3 but it is made up of 1 2/3 cup flour and 1 cup of fine semolina = 2 2/3.

      OR

      1 2/3 Flour
      1 semolina
      -----
      2 2/3 TOTAL

      Oh well, not really much clearer. Must figure out how to express fractions better within the blogger font somehow.

      Delete
    2. OK I see what is confusing. When I say "allow the flour to be 2:1 ratio" read "flour" as in the combination of standard wheat baking flour and fine semolina. Does that help or have I just complicated the issue? *sigh* sorry....

      Delete
  2. I Love home made pasta Tanya.
    You must be able to make a meal from scratch from your pantry and garden!!
    Fantastic.
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha ha, now I see what you're on about - I sort of missed that the semolina was part of the total flour quanity. Gee, I looked like such a maths whiz when really I am not - it actually took me a while to work out how to write down my point... pointless in the end! Lol!

    Cheers - Joolz

    ReplyDelete
  4. I usually just use 1 egg to 100g high grade flour per person and it comes out fine. Will try your recipe though as I know traditional pasta should have semolina flour. We usually just eat it fresh, but I might try drying it and storing as you do. It's so quick and easy and beats any store bought by a mile! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Tanya, would love to make my own pasta, but the girls aren't laying ......still!!

    It looks great and I love the idea of using it as a house warming gift etc.

    Claire x

    ReplyDelete

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