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Fresh Pasta with Leaves and Flowers






I have been making pasta with herbs for years now, a good party trick, easy and effective. But I never had much luck with flowers, usually I got strips of colour and little more... until now. I am not sure if this is the reason but... I made a little change to my pasta dough. Usually I make fresh pasta with flour and eggs, the ratio being 100 g of flour to one free range egg. This time for 300 g of flour and 3 eggs I also added 1 tbsp of olive oil. At first I did this to make my job easier: I have little cold hands, not really suitable for pasta making. I could never do what my Grandmother did: work with a huge mass of 1 kg, all by hand and with the rolling pin. But she was a real Emiliana (from Emilia Romagna), with strong harms, and she started to make pasta at a very young age.





I picked some herbs and flowers from my garden. I rolled the pasta with a manual pasta machine down to the lower setting (very thin). Then I placed some leaves (and flowers) on the pasta (if it gets dry just brush the spot with a little water), folded some more pasta over and sprinkled with a little flour.





I set the pasta machine back to the second lower setting a put the pasta through the rollers again.





I think that you could easily stop here and cut your pasta, but I like fresh pasta to be very very thin, so I passed the pasta once more through the roller on the last setting. The pasta didn't break, and the leaves and petals flatten beautifully. I really like the patterns, especially the one the chives made.




Then I cut the pasta out with a pasty cutter: Here is the Italian parsley



Borage Flowers



Vietnamese mint



Nasturtiums


Oregano (Fresh)


Rose (red)


Basil


Chives


Calendula


Do not use rosemary or even sage, they are too thick and will break the pasta.




I cooked the pasta in salted boiling water. It only takes a couple of minutes because it is so thin, and the colours stayed!!! Usually I dress fresh pasta with butter, sage and parmesan cheese, but I didn't add sage this time because I wanted to taste the herbs and flowers in the pasta. Also I have to say that butter in NZ is really tasty, yellow and creamy (because cows eat green grass all year round).




The Vietnamese mint has a strong but super pleasant and fresh taste. Parsley and chives also had a lot of taste, basil and oregano less. Among the flowers the winner was the rose, I could really taste it. I am quite happy with the result, an easy but effective and delicate dish which could do well for important occasions.


Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©


Comments

  1. wow...fantastic post...love d excellent clicks Alessandra..
    Tasty appetite

    ReplyDelete
  2. sono meravigliosi......non li avevo mai visti...bravissima.... buon annonuovo, bacioni, Flavia

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks cute and excellent post. love the way you put it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Flavia, la pasta con le erbe l'avevo gia' vista, quella con i fiori me la sono inventata :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. What an AMAZING idea! I have nto make pasta with herever thought bs and flhis way. It owers tis just beautiful. Thanks for all of the pics and ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  6. So pretty...I have never seen this before...what a great idea..thank you for sharing. xo

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, really beautiful - like artwork!

    ReplyDelete
  8. che meraviglia sono rimasta a bocca aperta non avevo visto mái niente di simile, perfetto! bacione!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi,

    A flower is a part of a plant that forms pollen or seeds or both. Only seed-bearing plants have true flowers. Send beautiful fresh cut flowers with Interflora. It Offering nationwide flower delivery. Birthday flowers, graduation flowers or any occasion. Thanks a lot...

    Italian Florists

    ReplyDelete

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