Friday, July 17, 2009

As requested, orecchiette in four easy steps

1. Mix the dough. This is a piece of cake if you have a heavy-duty mixer. If you don’t I suggest making cakes instead – they’re easier to stir. Throw in your bowl: 2 cups flour, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon each of water, oil, and salt. Let the dough hook knead it forever, or at least until you get tired of waiting. My experience is that the longer you let it knead, the more tender your pasta will be.

2. Roll out the dough into cylinders with a diameter of about ½ “.

3. Squish each piece in the middle. Use lots of flour at this stage, and when you lay the finished orccchiette out.


They'll look like this.

4. But once I cooked the first batch, I realized that they’re better if they're squished out flatter. Take a look at the finished product, mixed with pesto sauce. I pressed out each piece so that it had a diameter of about 1 ½” and I tried to press the centers just a bit more than the edges, so they would cook evenly.

These really aren’t that hard, as long as you have a machine to knead the dough. Now that I’ve made them a few times, I can roll out the dough (which makes enough for three adult servings) in about fifteen minutes. They last in the fridge about a week, with wax paper between the layers. And did I mention that they are delicious?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yum!

unclem-nm said...

I'm in to give it a try. I like making pasta dough and this means I don't have to use the machine!

Gill - UK said...

They must indeed be good - I've never spotted a comment from Andrew before!

stef said...

Mmmm. Can it really be that easy? I will be trying this soon for sure!

Matty Lau said...

"This is a piece of cake if you have a heavy-duty mixer. If you don’t I suggest making cakes instead"

Is this like Marie Antoinette's comment about letting them eat cake?