Day twenty-nine: The perfect pasta recipe (and, no, you don’t need a machine)
Posted on | March 24, 2009
Is culinary school going fast? You better believe it. So fast, we are almost at the end of the first term.
So fast, it is almost scary.
But what’s not scary is that we are also nearing the end of chicken week (which is actually two-weeks long, but chicken two-weeks just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?).
And what’s also not scary is my amazing anyone-can-make-it pasta recipe at the end of the post.
“I look ripped in my picture. And, the thing is, I wasn’t.”
~ Sweet Line Chef
We finally got our student ID cards yesterday. I look like a housewife on Valium: You know, glazed eyes and a foolish smile. I wasn’t and I am not. See, pictures sometimes lie.
But I am glad to get my card.
Yesterday we made chicken (big surprise; that’s all we’ve been making for nearly two weeks). My group (98 Pound Girl and myself) made chicken breasts with a red pepper sauce. Yawn, yawn. We also sauteed some Swiss chard to go with it and I let it wilt too long and felt pretty awful about it because I’ve made the same thing, perfectly, at home at least a million times. But, boy, get me into a professional kitchen with professional chef’s watching my every move and, boof, that thing wilted into oblivion in something like two seconds.
(Even worse, what the Chef does not know is I burned the shit out of some minced garlic before he came over to watch me wilt the Swiss chard. The pan was way too hot and the garlic turned pitch black seconds after it hit that oil. The garlic was down the sink and the pan was cleaned before 30 seconds had passed. I can move fast when I’m motivated. And I was pretty motivated.)
However, all was not lost. Because two good things happened. First, I made a pretty parsley speckled pasta. It was fast, easy, and perfect (the recipe is at the end of this post).
And I was praised for my plating.
See, until now, all we had to do was cook. But two days ago, Chef took it up a notch by requiring us to plate our food. And plate it pretty. Yesterday, he wandered the kitchen, picking apart all the plates. But, then, he came to my plate and stopped, looked, and turned to me.
“You ever study composition?”
“Fine Arts major, Chef.”
“Yeah? Your plate is perfect.”
He moved on. And I figure if no one will hire me to wilt their vegetables, I can always get a job making pretty plates.
“I can spend $100 on beer. Matter of fact, I have.”
~ Sweet Line Chef
Today, was more of the same: Chicken! Our recipes du jour was chicken cacciatore (chicken in tomato sauce) and saffron risotto and a vegetable. The group that made this yesterday (we alternate which group does what recipes and at the end of each cycle, we all get a shot at ‘em) picked carrots as their vegetable. So, picture if you will, the plate: Red chicken and sauce, saffron-colored rice, and orange vegetables.
I was having none of that.
Now, we had to do the chicken, so I was stuck there. But I changed the risotto from a saffron risotto to a mushroom and thyme risotto (simply added minced thyme and and sliced shittake mushrooms in place of the saffron) and grabbed some asparagus.
Chef #1 took the asparagus for another student group.
Bother.
Chef #2 took pity on me and swiped some asparagus from another classroom.
Goodie.
So picture our plates: Puddle of red sauce. Small mound of creamy risotto. Piece of chicken. Asparagus which had been tossed with toasted pine nuts.
I was pleased.
“A gourmet who thinks about calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.”
~ James Beard
Motorcycle Chef writes quotations every day on the chalkboard. Because her class meets in the lecture room before our class, we get to read whatever quotations she writes.
This one is fun, isn’t it?
Now, after three hours in the classroom making chicken, we are required to taste each others work and comment on flavor and aroma and texture and so forth. This makes for some odd plates. For today, for example, I had Italian chicken, Japanese chicken, chicken made with a classic recipe, chicken wings, chicken stuffed, and chicken every which way on one plate. Then, on top of this, there were the starches. And the vegetables.
And we eat all this at about 10:30. Then we clean up and have lecture from 11:15 – 1:00 in the room just vacated by Motorcycle Chef and her students.
So by 12:30 I am usually battling sleep from all that food. But today, today we got embroiled in a long discussion on cooking turkeys. And exchanges, like this one between the Sweet Line Chef (picture a linebacker in an apron) and Grandpa Chef (picture a grizzled ex-Air Force guy, also in an apron) helped to keep me awake.
“So how do you keep your bird from drying out?”
“I soak a cheesecloth in clarified butter and put it on the bird, Chef.”
“Cheesecloth? Where did you get that from?”
“Martha Stewart.”
Snicker, giggle.
“What? Why you laughing?”
~ Sweet Line Chef and Grandpa Chef with commentary from fellow classmates
And it was good that the class ended on a silly note. Because, after school, the husband picked me up and we went to the DMV to get our car registered. We’ve been here almost two months; it was time.
Perfect pasta recipe
Here’s the pasta recipe I used. The secret (which isn’t so secret) is the parsley which gives the pasta pretty green flecks. It looks wonderful on the plate and was ridiculously easy to do (so there, Mario Batali!).
8 ounces flour
2 eggs
1 – 2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 bunch of fresh parsley, finely minced
water, as needed
Make a mountain out of about half the flour. Make an indentation at the top of your mountain. Put your eggs, salt, parsley, and olive oil in your indentation. Using a fork, mix your egg mixture, dragging more and more flour into that indentation and adding flour, as needed (I pretty much used all the flour). When your dough starts to get too stiff for the fork, get in there with your hands and knead. If your dough is getting too stiff (and mine did), add a tiny drizzle of water (I stuck my hand in the water bowl and just shook it over the flour). Knead until it is fairly well mixed and starts to fight you. Then put it in a plastic bag and leave it alone for ten minutes to relax.
Now, when you come back to your pasta (and it is no tragedy if you have to leave it longer), you can either knead it by hand or run it through the widest part of your pasta machine several times to knead, folding periodically so it will fit and dusting both it and the machine with flour so nothing sticks.
When it, again, starts to fight you, give it another time out. But, this time, leave it on the counter to dry out a bit. This will make the final stage a bit easier.
Back again and either start feeding it through smaller and smaller holes in your pasta machine, or roll it thinner and thinner with your rolling pin.
Remember to be liberal with your flour or you will stick to everything and have a nasty clean up job.
Nice thin dough? Then if you are using a machine, go ahead and cut it. If you are not using a machine, roll your dough (make sure it is well dusted with flour) and cut strips. Next, you have to hang your strips of dough to dry. I cut fettuccine and hung them on the handles of large wooden spoons resting on a stockpot. Whatever you do, give them about 30 minutes to dry out, if you have the time.
Now, and here’s the tricky part, you have to cook your dough (actually, you have to do this with all dough) in plenty of water (think 8:1; eight times as much water as you have pasta, at a minimum). And, with fresh pasta, you have to cook fast (I gave mine 90 seconds) or it will turn to mush.
See how much fun that is? Way better than going to the DMV any day.
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March 25th, 2009 @ 4:01 pm
I’ve been curious about culinary school, but I’m vegetarian. In your posts you mention how you have to taste your own/classmate’s food. What does your school do for the people that don’t eat meat? Thanks!