Monday, May 26, 2008

Pasta class

I have decided that I am a bit obsessed with food. Luckily for me my DH is a bit like that too. When he saw Chef Marrianne M's flyer for the pasta class, he encouraged me to sign up.

So I spent one morning with The Chef and 10 other ladies making pasta.

First Chef Marianne showed us how simple it was to make gnocchi.



Gnocchi will always remind me of my Italian teacher back in London. Its fast and easy to make and reminds her of the comfort of home cooked meal.

The recipe for Gnocchi

1/2 kg potatoes
1 egg
170 g flour
2 spoons of grated parmesan
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes with skin on. Drain, peel the skin and press the potato through a sieve. Mix the potato with flour, eggs, parmesan and nutmeg.

Roll the dough into a slim cylindrical shape. Cut them up into 1 1/2 cm pieces and dust with flour to prevent them from drying out.

To cook them, put them in boiling water. The gnocchi will float to the surface when they are ready.


The gnocchi is served in a meat ragu tuscan style. Its delicious!



Then Chef showed us a fussy-free method to make pasta. And I have to say I am enthralled by her pasta attachment for her Kitchen Aid mixer. I've never seen this attachment before as previously I have only worked with the manual one. And I can tell you that this Kitchen Aid makes pasta making a breeze!



From the pasta sheets, she showed us how to make tortellini and ravioli. Usually its tortellini when the filling is meat and ravioli when the filling is cheese.

In this case she used a combination of ricotta, cream cheese, grate parmesan and the lemon peel.






The meat tortellini in asparagus bouillon was really wonderful. It was light and fresh especially with the crunch of the asparagus.




The ricotta ravioli in red pepper sauce was a little bit sweet because I accidentally tipped the bag of sugar in the saucepan. I found the sauce familiar yet unique as I have never quite tasted the red pepper sauce.


Guess which kitchen gadget I'll be looking out for next! ;)

2 comments:

Mme RoSsé said...

alloooo...

I saw the Kitchen Aid + attachments at MeyerCauseway Point!!!

o Food Grinder plus plates for thick or thin spaghetti, flat noodles, macaroni and lasagna
Retail: S$ 199.00

http://www.mayer.sg/www/storefront/aspFn/Product.asp?ProductId=122&CatalogId=10&Brand=KitchenAid

Kitchen Aid is on my shopping list bila dapat durian runtuh! Heheheh..
Cos the one i am eyeing for is priced at S$ 1099.00!!!

Swahili said...

Ah im glad you discovered the freshness of fresh made pasta. As i said in my entry on Lasagna, nothing beats fresh sheets.

Ive made Gnocchi but since norhan is not such a big fan, its something I make only for guests. Same for ravioli.

Kitchen Aid is much cheaper in US. Since im a sucker for best bargain, I bought mine few years back in US. of course now dah jadi urban legend.