Smithy

Thanks for your comments and compliments, MobyP! I was hoping to try a new batch tonight, but got home too late. It's a shame - you should see the lovely summer squash sitting in the refrigerator, and the beef ribs waiting to be braised. I'm really keen on these stuffing ideas. To answer your questions, and exchange more ideas: I did use your recipe, with the exception that I had pasta flour (not 00) and used semolina only as a dusting agent. The funny thing is, it didn't stick to itself unless folded too long, and it never stuck to my hands or to the pasta machine, so it didn't seem damp to me. That must be one of those 'feel' things. I'll still try it a touch drier next time. Although you wrote "God forbid" about my getting those results with your recipe, your recipe and instructions have provided me with the most satisfactory results ever in my attempts. That pasta maker has sat unused in the cabinet for over a year, intimidating me every time I open the door. Good on ya, Sir. I don't think resting time was more than 1/2 hour - more like 15 minutes - in either case, so that may not have been a factor. However, the first night's batch (1/2 hour resting) was rolled more thinly than the second batch (48 hours' resting). It sounds as though that was backwards. The doneness test and the draining are welcome pointers. I forgot, both times, to keep the liquid to a simmer. My electric stove is on the wimpy side, and so a full boil went rapidly to no bubbles at all when I add a few pasta pieces. I'll remember that next time. It's good to know that the shape isn't all that important. I want to duplicate some fabulous ravioli (various stuffings) that some friends and I experienced last weekend. Those little round pillows were just perfect, but had these teeny margins, barely noticeable. There's hope that I won't have to get it so good...once I get this technique, and then the stuffing, and then the sauce.. Thanks so much for your comments. I'll report back on the next attempt(s). This is *really* fun! Edited to add: I just looked back at the photos in the first Stuffed Pastas lesson. You're right, my dough DOES look wet and flaccid. I'm glad you posted those photos. I'll use them as a gauge next time.

Marlene. Chive oil. Wash, drain a bit, then chop the chives until the food processor can do the rest. Do the same with garlic, if you're a garlic fan. Whirr it all in the food processor with EVOO, and salt to taste. You now have a fine, beautiful chive oil that is wonderful drizzled over, oh, scalloped potatoes or baked potatoes or, um, eggs or broiled fish or, um, use your imagination. This stuff freezes wonderfully, also. Oh, did you do dill? Imagine dill and chives together, with garlic, salt and olive oil. I hope you did dill this year. My usual trick for end-of-season herbs is to wash and drain, of course, then whirr them together in a combination I think will be pleasing, along with a bit of salt, garlic, perhaps pepper, and enough olive oil to get it all liquid, and then put the mixture into an ice cube tray to freeze. I've done this with varying combinations of parsley, oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, chives, basil. (I usually keep the basil separate for pesto jars, but not always.) This year I'll have tarragon to try that way, but I haven't tried it before. Can't see why it wouldn't work. Once the cubes are frozen you can break them out of the tray and pack into a smaller container or bag, then stuff in the freezer. Voila! Instant wonderful herb cubes for soups and sauces through the winter...and more winter...and then spring...until finally you have the fresh stuff again. It's a lifesaver up here. I generally do basil, garlic, salt and olive oil in the appropriate proportions for pesto and then stuff those into larger containers, enough to make a goodly portion of pesto when the winter blahs set in. I read somewhere that the nuts and cheese shouldn't be added until everything is thawed lest it all go bitter, but I haven't tested that meself. Andie addressed bay leaves above, and I have no experience with trying to freeze them although I know they dry just fine on a dying plant. Finally: I've heard that most of these herbs can be frozen as is, then broken off as necessary, just as Snowangel mentioned wrt her rosemary. I suspect the oil in the oil cubes I discuss above will help preserve some of the herb oils, but I really don't know that. I do know that random cubes are easier to locate in my freezer than random flat freezer bags.

Too hot yet, although that's a poor excuse given just how hot it is down there. We did red beans and rice, though.

Well, Hellman's is what I grew up with. And of the prepackaged mayos I've tried since, it's pretty much the one I like best. Although recently I've gotten very fond of Trader Joe's mayonnaise--it's got a nice sorta lemony tang to it, and a looser consistency than the Hellman's--or Best Foods as they call it out here. Not sure how the same product wound up having two different names depending on which side of the Great Divide one is on, but if you go to either product's website you'll see they look fairly similar except for the logo, and a little statement at the bottom linking to the other site: Best Foods Hellman's ← I've noticed other splits at the Rockies, but never known why. It seems to be some corporate thing. The only other example that comes to mind is See's Candies, known on this side of the split as Fanny Farmer...but I'm pretty sure I've seen others. The major mayonnaise manufacturers (Miracle Whip does not count, and I truly detest the stuff, but I know many people love it) seem to be Hellman's/Best Foods and Kraft. The Kraft doesn't taste nearly as good to me. As I recall it's too heavy on the garlic (dehydrated and powdered, no doubt). There may be other ingredients throwing it off for my tastes. ...and that, my friend, is one of the most compelling reasons for convenience foods. If I made everything from scratch, all the time, we'd eat a lot of cheese and crackers ...no, wait - those are all convenience foods too, aren't they? I haven't a clue.

Chris, whenever I need justification for another kitchen tool, I'll think of you and look no farther.

Because there were chives in the stuffing, I think melted butter with snipped chives and lemon juice would have been nice. They look great though! My first guess would be that the dough had been around too long. But also, maybe you did not cook them long enough? I know fresh pasta does not need to cook very long but I have found that they always take longer than you think. I keep testing them while tey're cooking, because the amount of time they have to cook seems to vary a lot. But, far, far more addictive. I just made a batch with pressed parsley leaves for tonight's dinnerparty. Stay tuned... ← Thanks Chufi. That raises a related question: how does one know when these things are done, and what happens if they're overcooked? In other words - when in doubt, is it better to leave them in longer or pull them out early? I kept trying to finger them (ouch!) or poke the edges, but really was guessing about the "al dente" feel. The snipped chives are a GREAT idea. I thought they needed something green. Looking forward to your photos and results!

I'm doing a slight cross-post with my questions, so that I catch a broader audience and so later readers can find the other thread. Over on the Fresh/Stuffed Pasta and Gnocchi, Cookoff XIII thread a bunch of us have been learning to make stuffed pasta. I've found MobyP's instructions to be invaluable, far better than anything in the books I've tried. So far I've made stuffed pasta twice and been gratified with the results, but I came away with some questions. For background, I should explain that I made one batch of dough, used a quarter of it the first night with a smoked fish filling, and used half of it 2 nights later (48 hours) with a crab cake stuffing. In between times the leftover quarters were tightly wrapped and stored in the refrigerator. Questions from both sessions: 1. How do you know when the pasta is done? 2. What happens if you overcook the pasta? 3. How careful do you have to be with it when you're draining it? I've been fishing the pieces out, one by one, and setting in a colander. They haven't been well-drained, perhaps because I didn't give them long enough. I was afraid they'd stick together, although they haven't so far. The second time around, I noticed that the dough contracted slightly after I'd rolled it out - I hadn't seen that the first time. The finished results were also, well - doughier, or gummier, or tougher, or something. Still good, still much better than anything from the store, but not as good as the first time around. I can think of some differences between the two nights, but I'd like to know which really influenced the final results. 4. Why was the dough not as good the second night? - Dough doesn't really like "resting" 48 hours, even in the fridge? - Dough wasn't rolled out as thinly, and seemed tougher? - Dough was wrong shape for this filling (round pillows, small edges first time, triangles with unstuffed corners the second) - Difference in poaching liquid (broth the first time, water the second) - Some other reason I haven't thought of I have a full-blown lab experiment going in my house now, but if someone else already knows the answer, I can get on with other experiments, like changing the flour type, etc. Final question: how does one determine the optimum shape for a stuffed pasta, given a particular filling?

I'm starting to believe that! That's good encouragement, and I already believe you. Even with my cavils about the dough thickness and toughness, I went to bed last night thinking that this was STILL, by a long shot, better than anything I've ever bought fresh in the grocery store. And as for those dried tortellinis, stuffed with dried pesto or chicken or whatnot: well, they've just been relegated to camping food. I still have some specific questions that haven't been addressed. I logged on this morning planning to go over to the Q&A session and repost them there, but hey - since you're looking in, MobyP, and I raised them here, I'll repeat them here first. 1. How, and for how long, does one drain these beauties? With store pasta I'd just empty the pot worth into a colander and let it drain. I'm afraid these are too tender and/or will stick, although they haven't shown signs of doing that yet. I've been handling them gently (fish out one at a time, set lovingly in the colander) but they aren't sitting long enough to drain well. Am I babying them too much? 2. Why did the dough seem tougher the second try than the first? It was the same batch. Here are the (known) differences between the uses: - Dough used the first night had maybe 45 minutes to rest, wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator; leftovers sat wrapped in same plastic another 48 hours - Dough not rolled out as thickly the second time (1 gauge thicker on Atlas); - Pillow shapes different, so second night's pasta had more unfilled dough than first night's. Enquiring minds really want to know, and all that. I noticed that the dough was more elastic - that is, shrank slightly after rolling - the second time. Maybe the gluten had developed more. I used pastry flour (low protein). MobyP, your course and Chris, this thread have really fired me up. I had some wonderful stuffed pasta last weekend that I want to try duplicating. Thank you so much.

Tonight's experiment: pasta stuffed with crab cake mixture. I mixed up some crab cake, er, mixture based on a recipe from Frank Stitt's Southern Table. The general ingredients were crab, lemon juice and zest, bread crumbs, shallot, other seasonings, and egg. I made a few adjustments to his recipe - more lemon, a touch of vinegar, some chives - no doubt to compensate for the fact that I was using cooked shredded crab from a foil pouch instead of really good stuff. By the time I was done messing with it, the mixture tasted pretty good. I whirred it to a fine grind in the food processor. The pasta dough was left over from my attempt 2 nights ago. It's been sitting in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly in Saran Wrap. Rolling went smoothly. In accordance with my lessons learned last time around, I cut each dough quarter into two pieces, so I was working with 1/8 of the original recipe at a crack. That made the dough MUCH more manageable as I got it rolled down to the thinner levels. I also took a note from the previous lesson and only rolled it to level 7 on my Atlas, instead of level 8 as recommended. I tried two shapes, and if I'm reading my book right, they qualify as pansotti (pot-bellied dumplings) and cappellitti (little hats). Please correct me if I'm wrong. Here's how they looked before cooking: Into the boiling water they went. They were well on their way to being cooked before I remembered that the instructions said to simmer, not to boil. I don't know whether that mattered. They never stuck together. As before, I didn't have time to do an interesting sauce, so the cooked pillows were tossed with melted butter, and then given a grating of freshly-ground pepper and salt. I didn't even think of cheese! I thought of herbs, but couldn't be bothered. Behold: crab-stuffed pasta tossed with melted butter. Here's a closeup, so you can see what the interior looked like: The flavor and texture of the stuffing were good. I was pretty happy about that. The sauce wasn't bad but could have been better. What would y'all have done with that, both for flavor and for looks? Now, here's the kicker: the pasta was tough and, well, doughy. It wasn't bad where it encased the crab mix, but those long triangle points were a bit much. It wasn't quite as noticeable with the hat shapes. I have 3 guesses as to why the pasta was different than last time around, since it was from the same batch. I may find the answers through experimentation, but I always favor the lazy approach: if someone already knows the answer, please help me out! Guess 1: Pasta dough likes to rest a bit, but not for 48 hours. It got too tough. I did notice, when I got it rolled out to the final setting (7), that it contracted slightly on the board when I laid it out. I didn't see that the other night. Guess 2: I really did need to roll the pasta out thinner, to level 8, even though I might have had to double in some portions because of tearing. Guess 3: The shape makes a difference, and the round pillows I made the other night didn't have large enough expanses of sealed pasta (as with tonight's points) for me to detect the toughness. What do you think?

I certainly have to cop to canned beans (especially garbanzos, kidney beans and cannelini) but I may have to see what Rancho Gordo can do to convince me otherwise. I'm afraid I fall into the "forgot to plan ahead" camp too often. Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice, and their Jambalaya, and their Gumbo, all in handy boxes the size of Kraft Mac and Cheese, but much, much better. These mixes are too salty, and I'm well on my way to making better gumbo now thanks to that wonderful Gumbo cook-off thread, but these are fast, tasty, and inexpensive. How can you beat that on a late hungry night? Edited to add link

Would you elaborate on that, please? I'm curious both about the pig's age and the freezing bit. Why would those determine the level to which the liver was to be cooked? Edited for clarity

Yet again, Fifi beat me to the punch. I'll add: malt vinegar on chips. Lemon juice will do in a pinch, but it isn't the same. People in the States look at me oddly when I ask for vinegar for my fries, so it's always a relief to order chips in Canada or England and get the right stuff.

My New American Heart Cookbook is now taken. This leaves me with - Passover Desserts and - While the Pasta Cooks I'll add another. I have a spare copy of the Cooking Club of America's Celebrate! The Holiday Cookbook, complete with lovely photos and menus for various occasions. Warning: this particular copy was poorly printed, and the colors didn't always line up, so some of the print makes you think you need glasses, or that your hangover is worse than you thought. Still, if you can get past that it has some nice ideas.

The only uteruses eaten as human food are those from non-pregnant pigs. They are generally poached or boiled ... I know, offal, just horrible! source for this information ← Well, my first impulse at this line of commentary is to be glad I didn't get the entire package (sans oink) after all. How small-minded is that? Maybe sometime when I'm looking for adventure I'll go seek some out.

This makes me very, very sorry I don't have some defrosting RIGHT NOW so I could have it tonight.

Ooh, looks like the dog won't be getting any of this after all. Thanks, folks - keep 'em coming! Pointers on how to make a terrine of this, or what makes a coarse country pate, will also be appreciated.

That looks really good, Charlie O. While I'm on a pasta kick right now (glad you liked it, Susan!) I may be trying potato gnocci soon myself. Your photos and comments are as encouraging as Susan says mine were!

The titles pretty much say it all. We bought a hog, butchered, last year. I've learned, more or less, to render the leaf lard and use it. The steaks, chops, hams, etc. are nearly history. Last night when I was digging through the freezer I found some remnants yet - oh joy, pork chops in our future! However, I also found several packages of pork liver - so many packages, in fact, that I wonder whether we got someone else's into the bargain. I have no idea what to do with pork liver. The most I can claim to know is from an old Mason Williams "Them Poem" about "Them Hog Liver Likers", and 'Getcherself some hog liver, rare back and like it' is not very helpful. Shall I feed it to the dog, or is there something more constructive to do with it? Ideas and recipes, please!

Welcome, boticela, and congratulations on your tenacity! This is a good place to ask questions, get and give answers, and share triumphs... ... as well as lamentations.... My cherry tomatoes are about done, though they were good. So far I've gotten 5 ripe large tomatoes from my plants. Every one has been mealy, as though it perhaps got too much water. Could I have overwatered the plant? Or was it the growing season or the soil?

Hmm. I started by listing all the convenience foods we keep around, then realized that's not quite your point. I'm not big on Mrs. Dash, but Spike makes a regular appearance on my avocado. Other secret weapons: -Lawry's seasoned salt (for me) -Montreal grill pepper blend (for him) -Prepared mustards, with or without horseradish -Famous Dave's Barbeque Sauce of some variety -I always thought Nestle's semi-sweet chips were a basic food group on their own?! -Trader Joe's sun-dried tomato pesto -Trader Joe's or someone else's olivada, tapenade, bruschetta topping, artichoke lemon pesto (hey, I can't can all of this stuff) -Jarred roasted red peppers -Danish smoke salt There, those are some of our favorite condiments/convenience foods. That leaves out our too-tired-to-cook shortcuts like frozen vegetables and canned sauces, and the Jet-Puff marshmallow cream for Dad's favorite fudge, but we use those too.

Hey Kristin - C'mon in, the water's fine! Last night I got that extra practice I'd hoped for. I carefully read MobyP's instructions and followed them nearly to the letter, with much better success than my previous attempts using pasta instructions from other sources (including the Atlas pasta maker instructions). One difference was that I used unbleached pastry flour (King Arthur, protein content unknown but doubtless low) and forgot the semolina except as a dusting flour. It all worked well - I will use this recipe again - and I learned as I went. I used my bread bowl so the egg yolks wouldn't go all over the floor, and basically pretended I was a food processor: that is, instead of all that neat stirring and whisking, then adding salt, etc. I just broke up the eggs well and started stirring. When it started coming together I began to knead it by hand in the bowl, then turned it out onto the bread board with semolina to keep it from sticking. After some 8 - 10 minutes it was smooth, elastic, and felt well mixed. I let the dough rest in the refrigerator, wrapped, per instructions. While the pasta was resting, I skinned and deboned some frozen smoked cisco I had left over from a recent smoked fish tasting adventure. Cisco is a small freshwater fish, rather bony, pretty fishy. I decided it's generally like anchovy in terms of strong fishy salty flavor, although not as oily, and that it needed anchovy-compatible flavors. Into the food processor went sundried tomato pesto, walnuts, a touch of olive oil, and parmesan cheese. After a bit of whirring I adjusted all with a touch of lemon and salt. Capers might have worked too, but I forgot to try them. Lesson 1 (I've made this mistake before): with the full recipe of dough, cut it into 8 pieces instead of 4. Otherwise, that strip gets much too long to be manageable by the time it's down to the thin roller setting. Note how sheer but sturdy the pasta is. Note how elegantly the excess drapes over the pasta machine. You can see the nicely rolled pasta laid out, fading into the background, but I had to cut off a bunch of the excess (not enough hands) and reroll it. In the future, I'll cut the dough into 8ths in the first place and figure on using two. Lesson 2: I should have stopped with Atlas Level 7 instead of going on to 8. By the time I was putting my layers together, the thin dough was tearing. You can just see a small tear on the right. I compensated by doubling the pasta on most of the ravioli. Purists may cringe, but it worked for me. I cut them out with biscuit cutters... ...and poached them in a mixture of chicken stock and water (I needed more, in a bigger pot)... ...and then came to my next question: how, how long, and where does one drain these delicate beauties? A colander didn't seem quite right, but that's what I did. Answers, anyone? Dinner: ravioli stuffed with smoked fish, tomato and walnuts, tossed with butter and the cooked-down poaching liquid. Garlic, herbs and/or olive oil would have looked better, perhaps tasted better, but it was getting late. This was still good. I shall now start kicking myself, per MobyP's instructions, for not doing this sooner. Hey, I have the leftover dough in the refrigerator. Can I freeze this stuff? Comments and questions welcome. This was fun, and I'll be doing it again soon.

I'm puzzled by "unsealed" ravioli. Didn't it dump all the contents out into the pot as the ravioli cooked? Am I misunderstanding you? I like that trick. I can see why you'd need tiny leaves, though. With big leaves I'd expect either the leaf or the pasta to tear with that treatment.

I hate to say this because I really try to keep costs down, but there's another way that it got easier for me: that KitchenAid pasta attachment. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to use that Atlas hand-cranked machine with only two hands. Indeed, I needed four in my house: one to stabilize the machine (the clamp didn't work with any of the surfaces in my kitchen), one to crank, one to feed the dough, and one to remove the pressed dough or cut pasta. Now I only need two hands -- and that machine can roll far more quickly than I ever could with that crank. [Pasta traditionalists committed to fork-blended eggs slowly incorporating a mound of flour atop the clean counter should turn away now.] I also find that the KA works very nicely for the initial dough blending and kneading. Plunk down your two cups of flour with a pinch or two of salt and blend for a bit. It'll make a slight well in the center, into which you break the three eggs. Then turn the paddle on low to beat the eggs and then incorporate flour into them. As they start to bind and create little nodules of dough, turn the speed up; when it's starts to ball, switch to the dough hook and knead it for a few minutes. I always take it out for some hand kneading before letting it rest, but it works like a charm. I have found that I make this more often, and thus practice more, thanks to the KA attachment; screwing up and starting over isn't as big a pain in the butt as with the hand-crank machines. ← On my death bed, they will wrench my KitchenAid and Cuisinart processor from my right and left hands as I try to take them to the great beyond. How did people cook and bake before them? I'm not a gadgety sort of person with these exceptions. The pasta rollers are terrific. I can't imagine pasta making with the fiddly dance of the hand cranked machine. I tried it once. You might want to try using the processor to make your dough. I find it even quicker and easier than the KA - and it cuts down on the flour storm when I'm careless with the switch. ← I don't have the KA pasta attachment, but I do have an electric motor that turns my Atlas machine. It was well worth the $50 I paid for it, for all the reasons you cite above. How DO people do that with only 2 hands? The machine fits on the side where the crank normally goes. It has 2 speeds. I got some more practice last night (see below) but so far I still can't see using the higher speed. Edited to add: Chris, note the cutting board used atop my counter. That's how I managed to get the clamp to work. It really requires a thick surface, doesn't it?

Your photos of the food and the buildings are beautiful! Yum! (the food, not the buildings) It's funny, one of my college friends was a Filipina who loved to cook and who frequently had a bunch of us over for dinner. She generally did Oriental foods - stir fries, things like that - or Mexican dishes like chorizo con juevos. I don't recognize a thing you've discussed in her cooking. She grew up in Manila. Would that make a difference as to the food she'd have grown up with? Sinigang looks like a promising recipe...I'm glad they suggested substitutes for some of those ingredients, though, because I'm not likely to find those greens around here. Talk about a whole new cuisine!

I've seen that pressed-leaf trick before, possibly in the same magazine. I think it's also used in From Simple to Spectacular. I ooh and ah over it, but haven't tried it. Yours looks great! I'd think you could cut the finished stuff strategically enough that you'd have a centered leaf over something like a raviolo (if I have the right term), or else leave the pieces whole and use them in a lasagna. I still have to try the stuffed pasta, so I'm nowhere near your expertise. It sure looks pretty! I am very encouraged by the comments that the pasta-making process gets easier with practice. Tonight I'll start getting that practice, I hope.