Noodle-ing around in the kitchen

Get your mind out of the gutter - this is a family blog. 

I made homemade noodles! I feel so much more Italian now. 

Jeffrey and John got me a pasta roller kit for the KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas. They also got me a pasta cookbook (more on that later) and some cool little tools – a pasta cutter and a ravioli form/cutter. The pasta cutter for the mixer is a separate attachment, and I am undecided if we’ll even need that. My favorite noodles can be made without it, I think.

We tried it out recently, settling on the basic pasta recipe in the book that came with the mixer attachment. We’ll save fancy pasta recipes for when we have a little more skill.

What are you doing? Can I have some?

I was a little unsure how this would all go. When my Mom was a newlywed, her mother-in-law, my Grandmother Pasquarello, taught her how to make homemade pasta. Grandmother Pasquarello was not actually Italian, but she had married into an Italian family so of course she had to learn to make sauce, pasta, hot sausages, etc. My Mom only did this that one time because she said she used every pot in the house. Twice. They didn’t have the spiffy equipment that I do now, and I have never been afraid of making a mess in the kitchen. I mean, I can make a mess boiling eggs (oh, yeah, I have a story about boiling eggs I’ll need to share sometime too).

Running through the pasta roller

All of us worked on this dinner. Jeff got started on the chicken. It’s sort of our version of Chicken Milanese, breaded and sautéed with, well, let Jeffrey tell you.

Well, it was kind of a feel your way as you go along thing. Plus, I was trying to keep busy while Lisa and John rolled and cut noodles. The chicken is simply breaded with the usual milk, flour, seasoned breadcrumb assembly line then fried up in some canola oil until it’s nice and golden brown. I didn’t worry about cooking the chicken through as I knew I had time to finish it in the oven, which I did end up doing. When this is done, you’re left with a nice bit of chicken-flavored oil. I deglazed with a bit of white wine, then put a little olive oil in to allow for more sauce and sprinkled flour onto it (while it’s nice and hot) to make a light roux. Then in went the juice of two lemons. It’s really just a matter of watching to keep the sauce the consistency you like, adding a bit of wine or oil (or lemon juice if you have any, but I didn’t) to loosen things up or letting it cook down to thicken. I fiddled longer than need be but I think it may have helped in the long run as I kept adding wine and cooking it down again. The sauce ended up pretty rich and, if I do say so myself, delicious.

Not too much of a mess...

It was delicious. I had made the pasta dough and let it chill and then John and I fired up the pasta roller. We had some successes and some not-so-great attempts. And I think next time I would run it though the next setting to make the pasta a little thinner. I figured out that if it didn’t come our pretty, I could just fold it in half lengthwise, run it through the roller again and it would be ok. As we made sheets, I cut out fettucine noodles. I coiled them up as best I could, and kept a towel over them until they were all finished so they wouldn’t get dry. Then we boiled them in salted water. We put a little butter and parsley on them, and voila! Dinner. The best part is that we were all in the kitchen together. And I have to mention that John was photographer for this post. I think he did a great job!

I think next I will try ravioli J