Making pasta
How can you make pasta more fun and interesting? The simple answer besides a delicious sauce would be flavor and color. There is nothing wrong with plain pasta but I like a color as well. I have done herbed pasta, watercress pasta, beetroot pasta and carrot pasta based on fresh purees. I was thinking about how to intensify the color when I came across a website called Healthy Supplies. They have a range of powders that caught my eye.
I bought beetroot powder, tomato powder and Moringa leaf powder. I had never heard of Moringa leaf before but it seems to have some amazing qualities as a real super food. It had a vibrant green color. I had some saffron and cocoa powder as well and did five different kinds of pasta.
Basic pasta recipe
preparation time 5 minutes
cooking time 2-3 minutes
serves 4
Ingredients
- 150 gr or 5.3 oz 00 flour
- 50 gr or 1.76 oz semolina
- 2 large eggs
- more flour for dusting
- 1 tbsp of the flavoring powder or mix a pinch of saffron with 1/2 tbsp water
- corn starch
Mix the flour and semolina. Add the powder if using and mix again. Add the egg and work until you have a smooth dough.
Let the dough stand for an hour, you can make the dough a day in advance and keep it in the fridge but take it out about an hour before you need to work with it.
The colors really came out and I think the pasta looked a bit like play dough!
The saffron pasta had beautiful strands of saffron and a light golden color.
The cocoa pasta is great with beef.
Moringa leaf pasta has a slight wheat grass flavor and creates a beautiful color.
Tomato pasta
Vibrant pink beetroot pasta
I wanted to make tagliatelle and rolled out half of the pasta. I did nests and powdered them with corn flour to stop them from sticking together.
Keep the pasta stored in an airtight container. It will keep 2-3 days in the fridge or you can also freeze it and keep it for a couple of months.
I hesitated to make pasta for years as it seemed so complicated but it isn’t. The flavor and texture is delicious and no supermarket fresh pasta will taste quite the same again.
I did some work on merging flavors and the pasta in the image above is beetroot and saffron pasta, there is more to come!
Beautiful photos!
hi Becky
Thank you! Have a great week ahead 🙂
Love the vivid colours in the first powder form & then the created pasta. Good to see the colours once cooked. Can imagine them being inspiration for some great dishes. DEE x
hello Dee
thank you! Am glad you like it! It is going on sale this weekend! 🙂 Take care xx
No, sorry, no corn starch … no corn starch! I am, yes I shall admit it, part of the Pasta Police !
Oh caught out! Tried semolina but it didn’t work as well 🙂
That is really weird – it works for the whole of Italy? Was it because the dough was to ‘hard’ to roll? Or maybe, it’s the quality of the flour itself. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I am sure it tasted delicious but am flummoxed by the ‘having to’ add corn starch, that’s all.
hi Jo
I tried semolina, and flour as well but found that the corn starch was lighter so I used it. I would never argue with your pasta knowledge! 🙂 I would prefer to make the pasta and use it straight away, without anything added but sometimes I make a bit more for later. It had no impact on the flavor of the pasta but I will give semolina another go 🙂 have a great Tuesday!
Beautiful colors!
Thank you 🙂
these are super unique, I don’t think I’ve ever seen pasta made like this before, the colors are simply amazing, thanks for the share 🙂
I was wondering if you were on FB at all? It would be amazing if you could share your recipe in our group, would love for you to join our community of food lovers! Check us out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/OnlyGoodEats/
hi Andrew
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! And thank you for the invite to join your group. I would love to and have just sent a request! I am looking forward to viewing and sharing good food! 🙂
awesome! Excited to have you in the community 🙂
I will join with the pasta today and am looking forward to sharing recipes. Thank you again for the very kind invite 🙂
happy to have you in the community! 🙂
Thank you 🙂
Thanks for another informative post. I have used beetroot and dandelion leaves to colour my pasta, but I am happy to add these other ideas to my repertoire.
hi Hilda
I a so glad you like it. There are so many ways to color pasta, I feel I have just started. I can’t wait to see what you will do! 🙂
How beautiful, Petra! Learning how to make pasta is on my list of things to do, but now you have made it even more fun and interesting! I can’t wait to try this! 😀
hi Julianna
I can’t wait to see what you will be making! It took me a long time to start making pasta and now I can’t seem to stop! How silly is that?! Thank you for your lovely comment 🙂
I’ve always wanted to do colored pasta, yet to try…They look beautiful!
hi Jin
I hope you give it a go but I have to say it is so much easier if you have a pasta machine, well worth investing it, or it is a good work out for the arms! 🙂 Glad you like it, fresh vegetables are a treat as well to use in the pasta!
Coloured pasta is so exciting! 🍀🍀🍀
hello,
thank you for stopping by and I am glad you like the pasta! Colored pasta is so much more fun than plain! A feast for the eyes 🙂