But up until today, I haven't tried making whole wheat pasta. After poking around on the internet, I found that most recipes call for a 50/50 mix of white flour and whole wheat flour. My past experiments with whole wheat breads has taught me that it is necessary to have this mix; pure whole wheat flour is just too dense and stiff.
Further investigation brought up this controversy: Many folks were saying that whole wheat pasta is much better with lighter sauces, traditional white flour pasta is better with heavy, "red gravy". So I conducted an experiment. I made a batch of whole wheat pasta, and made a traditional Bolognese red sauce, and a lighter sauce of garlic, olive oil and fresh basil.
Rick and I found both batches of pasta to be tasty; you can't beat homemade pasta. But it did become apparent that the garlic and oil pasta disappeared more quickly.
What I found out was this: You don't need a mixer, and you don't need a pasta maker. I kneaded the dough by hand, rolled it out with my trusty wooden rolling pin, and sliced it into fettucine noodles with a knife. NO expensive equipment involved. Sure, it looked homemade. But that's fine with me. And if you go with the garlic and olive oil "dressing", you can feed an army of folks for chump change and not a lot of work.
1 comment:
It was a close race but the oil & basil won out because it just seemed appropriate to a warm & sunny springtime evening. Had it been cold December, I may well have preferred the red sauce.
But most of all, I like the idea of duel, side-by-side, dinners. Let's make this a new tradition!
No mention of our crepe breakfast?
--rick
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