Fresh vegan home made pasta: Chard

[Guest guest]

We had some questions a while back about making pasta at home without eggs. I

inherited a nice pasta machine so I tried it. It was a big success. Basically,

instead of eggs I used a vegetable puree of my choice. It was no problem at all

leaving the eggs out, great consistency, great flavor. I tried it first with

chard because I have lots of it growing in the garden and my partner likes it. I

will be trying other variations from the garden soon. Arugula will be next, I

also want to try sweet pepper puree and butternut squash later in the year.

 

Chard home made pasta

 

1 cup (+) semolina flour

1 cup (+) all purpose unbleached flour

1 scant cup milled chard (made with fresh chard, washed, chopped and

sauteed in olive oil with half a head of minced garlic and passed trough my

Foley food mill - or you could use a blender instead)

1 tsp salt

 

I used a kitchen aid mixer with a dough hook to knead the dough. I

started with a cup of each but had to add a little more flour to get a

stiff enough consistency that would work in the pasta machine.

 

I then used a hand cranked pasta machine. I made both lasagna noodles and

fettuccine, following the directions for the machine (basically you use the

widest setting first, fold in half and pass again, then decrease thickness one

setting at a time until it is as thin as you like). I used the thinnest setting

for the lasagna, and the second to thinnest for the fettuccine. The amount

above made enough noodles for a very large pan of lasagna and a generous dinner

portion of fettuccine with olives, herbs, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan for two

people.

 

This was my first time making pasta from scratch. It was not fast, but it was

easy, and we could not believe how delicious this was! So I really want to

encourage others with pasta machines to try it. The semolina flour is key.