Semolina Pasta - Homemade

Semolina Pasta with Pesto

Time: Several Hours (home made pasta!)

Skills: Moderate and requires equipment

On a lazy Saturday afternoon, homemade semolina pasta with a bright pesto and I can't resist a quick photograph.  This is a world-class dish with hand-made noodles and a wonderful pesto.  The pasta is that good.

I used Semolina flour, which gives a firm noodle that can stand up to boiling water.  This is a wheat flour, high in gluten and is milled to be somewhat gritty, like a fine, pale yellow corn meal.  It is inexpensive and can be found in grocery bulk sections.  

In contrast, egg noodles are soft and mushy.  Once you switch to Semolina flour, you will never go back to an uninspired egg-and-four noodle. 

Making pasta by hand is work, but you can do this.  It is fun and not particularly technical.  Although this recipe seems long, it has lots of descriptive steps.  It will take about an hour (plus rest time in the fridge), and a few minutes more to cut the dough into noodles.  Start in the morning and have it for lunch or dinner.

I have a Kitchen Aid mixer with a pasta maker attachment.  Admittedly expensive but loads of fun.  The first time with the machine, you might be slow, but with experience, you will get faster and less-stressed.  Of course, this can be done by hand, which I have never tried.  

Serves 2 to 3.

Pasta Dough:

2 Eggs
1 to 2 tbs oil
2 T water
dash of salt
1 3/4 C semolina flour (400ml)


Beat the eggs, oil, water and salt
In a large bowl, add the flour and dig a pit for the egg mixture.  Start mixing by hand with a stout wooden spoon, working from the inside out. 

(Officially, you are supposed to beat the mixture for 2 minutes with a dough hook, but it was pointless because in two separate attempts, the machine did not form a ball.  I found it easier to mix with my hands.  There are no worries about over-working the dough.)

Only a small amount of water is needed, with the eggs providing most of the liquid.  When formed into a ball, the mixture should barely hold together, packed.  It may take several attempts to gather into a crumbly ball and it will look like a good home-made pie crust.  If more water is needed, use a water spritzer.

Drop the ball on the counter and knead by hand, folding pushing with the balls of your hand, folding it back upon itself.  This is a substantial dough and it will argue.  Teach it a lesson and show it who is boss.  Work it for five or seven minutes, looking for a cohesive ball.  If it sticks, it is too moist -- add flour to the counter and work it in.  It should hold its shape after the kneading.

Hand-roll into a thick, can-shaped tube, 8 - 10cm long (3.5")
Slice into round biscuits, about 3cm (1") thick

Individually wrap the pucks in plastic.
Put into the refrigerator, resting for at least two, preferably 4 hours (or as long as 12hrs).  The gluten needs time; let it rest.  If rested well, it will not fall apart when rolled.

Make the pesto next. 


Pesto Sauce:
 
The pesto is a sauce I never measure and invariably I never make enough.  Make more than expected.  Although the photos above show a fairly dry sauce, I've learned to be more generous -- the noodles should be swimming.  

Make the pesto before cutting the noodles - Much less stress

I use both pine nuts and white almond slivers, buying both in the supermarket's bulk section.  The pine nuts are wonderful, and there is no doubt the pesto needs them, but they are expensive.  Because of this, I stretch the recipe with the almonds.  Almonds are drier and blander than the pine nuts, but the garlic and basil will easily resolve any issues.  I like how the nuts add a texture to the sauce.

3 to 4 large cloves of garlic, or more...
2/3C Pine nuts 
1/2C White Almond Slivers
Olive Oil
One large Lemon, squeezed and seeded
Salt, Pepper
2 large packages of Basil, roughly chopped
Parmigiana Reggiano cheese (3 to 4 to 5 cups, finely grated (losely packed))

A good-quality (more expensive) cheese is noticeable in this recipe. 

In a food processor, toss the garlic, pine nuts, almond slivers, and some olive oil, pulsing several times.  Scrape the sides.  This can be grainy and does not need to be a puree or paste, but I like mine well blended. 

Add a squeeze or two of lemon juice to hold the basil's color, and a dash of salt and pepper.
Pulse-in the basil, working in batches. Although bulky, the basil will blend and reduce.  Scrape the sides.

While blending, drizzle a respectable amount of olive oil -- I'd guess about a cup. or more.  There is an art to this -- you do not want to over-work the basil and yet you want to add the olive oil slowly enough to emulsify.   Add enough oil to make a smooth, fairly lose but not runny paste.  You can wing this and can't really do this wrong.  Err on the liquid side.

Finally, quickly pulse-in (or hand-mix) the grated cheese.
Set the mixture aside in a small glass dish and let the flavors mellow.
If more than an hour, cover with plastic wrap, with the plastic resting on the sauce.


Rolling the Pasta:

Following the instructions with your noodle machine, hand-roll the biscuits into an oblong, flat disk, about 3mm thick.  Feed it through the machine's widest setting.  Fold the sheet back upon itself lengthwise and re-feed three or four times at the same thickness.  This sets a grain.

Move the machine to the next thinner setting and feed the sheet again but do not fold back on itself.  Continue narrowing the thickness, until their final thickness.  

For fettuccine, my machine recommends fettuccine at a #4 setting, but I like thicker noodles and use #3.  The sheet will be thinner than the cooked noodle.

Use a knife to cut the sheets to their final noodle-length 20-30cm (10 to 12"), give-or-take.
Do this before slicing the actual noodles. The shorter sheets make the cut noodles more manageable. 

Make all the sheets, laying each flat on a counter or towels on the table.  Do not stack because they stick.  Do not worry about jagged edges or rounded corners.  There will be more sheets than you would expect.  Work as fast as you can.


Slicing:

Slice the noodles into their final shape, either by hand or by machine.
It makes your life less hectic to slice all of the noodles before cooking; you won't have time to manage both activities. 

Lay the cut noodles aside, sprawling across every counter and table in the kitchen.  Don't worry if they stick, they will separate in the water.  No need to dry them. 

  If the noodles clump or mush-up in the cutter, 

the dough may be too wet or not rested enough,

the project may be in trouble.

Cooking the Noodles:

Boil in rolling, salted water for a minute.  Cook them in two or three batches, depending on your pot.  Don't crowd.  Work quickly.  Use a pronged noodle ladle to fetch them out of the water.

Put the cooked noodles in your largest, widest bowl.  A splash of olive oil, and a quick stir, helps keep the from clumping. Wait on the sauce until all of the noodles are cooked.  


Plating:

Toss all the noodles at one time with the pesto.  (From experience, this works better than trying to add the new freshly-cooked noodles to a previously-tossed bowl.)  If too dry, drizzle with olive oil and curse because you did not make enough sauce.

Garnish with Parmigiana cheese by using a vegetable peeler and slicing off a few curls for the top, making it look fancy. 

A few slices of toasted garlic bread would be a glorious.






IMHO, a Merlot or Pinot wine makes a great pairing.


Kale Pesto Variation:
A kale pesto is a good variation which my college-bound daughter taught me. 

Replace the basil with kale and use only almond slivers, no pine nuts.  You are doing this because you are a poor college student and both the pine nuts and the basil are expensive.  Kale and almonds are nearly free.  I would still use a better quality cheese.  The results are similar to the basil pesto and the taste is excellent, but different.  I make this variation often.

Pesto and Salmon

A picture is all that is needed.