Italian Cooking part 2

Today we made hand-made ravioli filled with mushrooms, and finished them in a butter and parmesan sauce. It was quite time-consuming, making the pasta, kneading it, putting it through the machine several times and then filling and cutting the ravioli. But what a magnificent result! I reckon it’s one of the tastiest dishes I’ve made, with a silky texture and delicate flavour, and was definitely worth the trouble.

The second pasta was completely made by hand without using the pasta machine, and it’s called Strozzapreti. It was hard work first kneading then rolling out the pasta, then you had to roll it between your palms like plasticene until you had thin sausages, which you then cut into 1½” lengths. It was accompanied by a broccoli sauce - you cooked the broccoli first in boiling water then added the pasta which cooked and rose to the top in just a few minutes. You then transferred both pasta and veges to a sauce of tomatoes and garlic. This pasta was a lot firmer and as there were no eggs in the mixture, a bit heavier, but with the sauce it was very tasty. This is what the Italians call Cucina Povera - Poor cooking, as all you needed was flour, water, tomatoes and whatever vegetable was in season. Rather than waste the goodness you could then use the water in which you had cooked the broccoli to make a vegetable soup.

Here are some pictures of us at work and of our hand-made pasta drying. I’m looking forward to next week when we will be making gnocchi, both of flour and of potato.