4.02.2008

Pasta Pronto



I've lately discovered fresh pasta. This stuff is awesome. There's a little store in Davis Square that will cut it while you wait, in any size you want. I've also found it for sale at Whole Foods, and even Shaw's. We bought a bunch of the stuff a couple of weeks ago and ate it with brown butter and sage until we were bursting at the seams. I'm not convinced that it's superior to the boxed, dried stuff, but it cooks so quickly, and I love ordering it at the counter and watching them cut up the blocks of dough.




I've tried making fresh pasta myself a couple of times over the years. Once, in high school, I spent a Sunday afternoon making dozens of spinach gnocchi. I'm not sure why; I'd never had gnocchi before, and I didn't like spinach. I think I was just into shaping the little dumplings, imprinting each one with the tines of a fork. I didn't realize they'd dry out so quickly, though, nor that they'd be so dense when cooked. I ate my way through about 15% of my yield before I had to trash the rest.

Stephen and I tried making pasta once, too, in college. We were cooking dinner for his parents, and decided to make the whole thing--orecchiette with fresh pesto--from scratch. The little ears proved time-consuming to mold, though, so ten minutes in we switched over to cutting fettuccine. I think we tried making spaghetti with a pasta maker, too. In the end, we threw it all together, along with the most extraordinarily verdant pesto I've ever seen. (The latter was made with a mortar and pestle, which may account for its vibrancy.) It was one of the most visually stimulating dinners I've ever had, that's for sure.