Fresh pasta with kangaroo and semi-sundried tomatoes
Another from "Maggie's Harvest".
I made the pasta from scratch and took forever as I haven't done it it in years - plus I started recording a video of it, decided that was boring and then broadcast it on Yahoo! Live. Thanks to all the folks who came along to giggle, cheer and offer suggestions as I bumbled my way through. Particular thanks to the random folks I didn't know who dropped by to heckle me. That was hilarious!
Tim saved part of it for perpetuity, which makes me giggle.
The recipe:
I poured 500g of continental flour onto my newly cleaned desk (it's the only spot that'll take the pasta machine so I decided to only flour up one surface). I mixed in around a teaspoon of sea salt and made a well in the centre.
I added 2 egg yolks and 4 eggs. I always do the egg yolks first in case I screw it up and drop the white. I whisked the eggs together, gradually feeding in the flour mix on the edges until I had a gooey paste. Adding more flour, I began kneading it. At first it was a little too wet, so my hands got coated in dough, but I eventually got the hang of it.
Once I'd kneaded it for 10 minutes or so, it became nice and shiny. I wrapped in it in gladwrap and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
I moved the kangaroo fillet from the fridge to the freezer and filled the pasta pot with water. I cleaned off our brand spanking new pasta machine ($89 in Norton Street Plaza today) and fixed it to my desk.
I turned the oven on to 200°C, scattered an oven tray with pine nuts and almond flakes and put it in. I promptly forgot about them, leaving them to burn in about 10 minutes. Bugger!
Lisa pointed this out to me, and made some more while I got on with making the pasta.
I took the dough from the fridge, cut it into ten segments and starting running them through the machine. Highest to lowest settings, fold over itself to widen it, etc.... Big ups to Jordan Brock for pointing out that it was all sticking because I didn't have enough flour on the dough. Once we had that sorted, it ran smoother, but it still took forever.
I used the fettucine cut setting and Lisa helped me pull the pasta through and hung it for me (cleaned clothes horse works wonders).
Then I put a frypan on with oil to heat and started slicing the kangaroo. It's time in the freezer made it hard enough that I could get it quite thin, but I've a ways to go before I'll be making carpaccio!
I added a cup worth of the nuts to the frypan and about 100g of sem-sundried tomatoes. I fried up the fillet separate while the pasta cooked, then I added the nuts and tomatoes to that to rest on low heat as I served up the pasta.
Finally, I added the sauce on top and sprinkled a fine helping of Auricchio parmigiano reggiano on top to garnish.
Lisa has declared this her winner of the week. That makes me happy!
There are also some photos of the process along the way.