Who says you can’t cook when you have exams or a upset stomach? Living in this part of the World means, obsessed with Delicious spicy food. Yes, yes and 1000 times yes! I am a proud foodaholic. It only happens, I like to cook more than I like to eat. And this just does not mean I cook under normal circumstances. Nope! My love for food heals me. I cook when I am stressed. I cook when I am sick. I cook when I have exams, yes yes and 100 times yes! anytime and anything. I just need the will to cook it and there you go!
I had plans to make Gulab Jamun today and blog on that, however, this sudden shift in the taste , in the middle of the night yesterday had me excited about making Italian Pasta dish.
What I do when I have a stomach that is forbidden for ravishing food for awhile? I watch lots n lots of BBC cooking shows online. That’s my therapy. This inspires me to get well soon for the sake of those delicious recipes that are still unexplored by me.
So following that, Last night I was watched Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food program. In a very old episode of it he prepared Italian spaghetti with meatballs. It of course had me off track and I forgot I am on strict diet by the doctor. I went to the kitchen at 2am in the night with a grumbling tummy and a torch in my hand. Guess what? It’s Pakistan. The light can go off any time. The moment I entered kitchen it went off again for the 100th time. SO obviously, a torch came to this damsel’s rescue. I searched for pasta but there was none. So I turned on GPS internet on cell and looked for fresh home made pasta recipe. I stumbled upon a very easy recipe by GialloZafferano, Italy’s number 1 food website. Ingredients for pasta are simple. Eggs and all purpose white flour.
This is how you make Fresh Pasta at home.
I took one 1 small cup of flour for one serving. and One egg. Make a pool of flour on clean kitchen shelf or a cutting board will work too. Then make a whole in the middle of it and break one egg in it. Using a fork, gently whip the egg in the centre of flour and slowly let both the ingredients mix. Then leave the fork and mix it with your fingers. When the mixture has the consistency of a sticky glue like , this is the time you need to use your hands and make a soft/hard dough. Please remember, it will not be a very soft dough as we haven’t used butter in it. That is used in the tart dough not for pasta otherwise your pasta will become just a regular dough of flour.Once your dough is ready after several minutes of hand shake with the flour, you need to put it in the refrigerator for awhile. In my case, it turned out,Β I put it there and fell asleep. So rest of the recipe was made in the morning.
Roll it well, you’ll sweat profoundly during this and Your dough is now ready to be cut in many pasta shapes.Pipes, lines or bow ties whatever you call it. And Hey! Do you know there are more than 600 pasta shapes in the world? woof! I made only 2 of them. Farfalle and Fettuccine. Farfalle a type of pasta , commonly known as “bow-tie pasta”, the name is derived from the Italian word farfalla (butterfly).
While Fettuccine literally means little ribbons. Pretty, eh? I made these π
Now the Tomato Sauce for the Meatballs.
Its again very simple and depends on your style of cooking. I just follow my heart and put anything I feel like using at that time. Make small meat balls and fry them. Once they are done leave them aside and prepare the tomato sauce. You need tomatoes and some water for that. Shake it well in the shakerΒ and you’ll have a puree. Now finely chop garlic and green chillies. Fry them and pour the puree in. Let it cook for awhile and add your secret ingredients. In go the meatballs now and viola! Your meatballs are ready. Just boil the pasta and serve it.
P.S. My mom was really proud of me today π I cooked pasta from the scratch!
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