Regarding what to drink: My vote would be a Pinot Grigio that is finished on the skins (like a red wine). The best I have had is from Valter Scarboli (note the first name spelling; it is correct). It is a kind of 'brownish' colored 'rosé' and quite rare, but it would be perfect for the hot pepper fettuccini with butternut squash as described here. I can taste it with my mind's tongue!
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Professor Anderson, between your mind's eye and your mind's tongue, the rest of us don't stand a chance. Yes, good dry pasta is very available and people are so busy, few have time to make fresh. Further, fresh pasta is really an acquired taste. But it's nice to have choices. I have known some who have had it for the first time and turned their nose up at it. And of course by good dry pasta (known as pasta ascuiutta to Italians), the best is imported, DeCecco for one but there are others. Your wine recommendation is primo! Valter is German? Scarboli has to be Italian.
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Of course it is Valter Scarbolo and the wine is Pinot Grigio Ramato XL. It is well worth the search for it. Here is the website: http://www.scarbolo.com/en/frutti/pinotgrigioramato#.Vtc2rEaK-FU
Even his 'regular' Pinot Grigio is in a class by itself.
Even his 'regular' Pinot Grigio is in a class by itself.
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Valter is Walter in Italian orthography (and pronounced about the same). The Scarbolo vineyards are in the extreme Northeast of Italy.
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I started making fresh pasta about a year ago and now I'm only interested in eating homemade. Homemade pasta is out of this world delicious. Thanks for the ideas and look forward to experimenting. Oh, and I use Antimo Caputo 00 flour I buy online.
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With all due respect calhouni, my mother never used a pasta machine. He rolled out huge sheets of dough, folded it over itself to form a long tube-like thing, with a sharp chef's knife she cut noodles into whatever shape she chose for that day, from very thin fidellini to spaghetti to fettucini to parpadelli, shook them out onto a semolina sprinkled tray until ready to boil ... and she did it just about every single day. I have and use a pasta machine but it can be done and I'll wager is still done by many old timers. 58 years ago when I first married I did as mama did for there were no pasta machine's available to a home cook but now my pasta machine and it is a boon to these old hands. So to conclude, pasta can be made without a machine but life is easier with one and I would not trade mine to go back to the old way.
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Well, my Italian mother and her mother both used pasta machines and they made terrific pasta. However, I also agree that there is plenty of space and time for dried pasta. I suspect most of us use it most of the time. Indeed, if I had to choose between between home made and dried pasta (and it had to be one or the other, forever), I would choose high quality dried pasta. In my pasta mind's eye, it is almost always the dried kind I see...
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With respect, linguini are dried noodles, or macaroni, and are not made with eggs. The narrow egg noodles that many call linguini are tagliolini, and are normally used in soups, as opposed to being sauced. The shapes are somewhat different: tagliolini are flat, while linguini are slightly rounded.
And, yes, both can be delicious.
And, yes, both can be delicious.
Michael ... tagliatelle can be eaten with sauce ... any sauce; in northern Italy usually with an Alfredo or Pesto sauce, in the south it will be served with a red sauce. I like it best with just dollops of good butter, a little EVOO, freshly ground black pepper and either parmesan or pecorino cheese (parmesan used in the north mainly, pecorino used in the south). However, it is good any way I can get it. What you call taglialini I think is what I call fidellini .. usually served in soups. Oh, who cares, it is all toothsome, right?
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www.spicesge.com in the Bronx sells vegetable powders. Spinach, red pepper, pumpkin, etc. They work great for flavoring by subbing 10% powder for some of the flour.
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This recipe looks like it will work well in my Phillips pasta machine using some of the butternut squash I have left from the farmers market last fall. I got the machine because my hand cranked machine was so labor intensive. I like fresh pasta better than dried. Store bought fresh pasta is so expensive. In a Phillips a batch is ready for cooking in about 1/2 hour including clean-up.
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I love Green Pasta with Tomato Sauce.
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Without a good past maker and access to the proper flours, there is no way a home cook is gonna make fresh pasta to compare to that I used to buy at the Raffettos store on Houston St. I sometimes dream of the fettuccine, dressed with good tub butter and fresh grated Reggianno Parmesan. Heavenly!
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You can get an Atlas Mercado 150 on ebay for around 40 bucks. King Arthur, while not Italian milled 00 still makes good pasta. Nothing wrong though with buying good fresh pasta from a good shop.
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