homestead cooking – The Nourishing Hearthfire

Making pasta at home is easier and cheaper than you may think. In this post I’ll share my method and thoughts on homemade pasta.

Why make pasta at home?

Dry pasta is pretty much empty calories, wrapped up in plastic. Homemade egg pasta is a really tasty way to eat eggs that even picky eaters enjoy, and because it’s so rich in nutrition from the eggs, sauces can be really simple to make a nourishing and filling meal.

Every week when we have enough eggs from our hens, we make pasta every Monday. This helps me with meal planning because it means there’s less days when I have to figure out completely what I’m making, but there’s still enough variety in pasta that we never get sick of it – sometimes it’s carbonara, other times pesto, sometimes a creamy cheesy sauce, sometimes garlic butter and greens, sometimes it’s oriental noodles with bacon and vegetables, sometimes just lots of butter and grated homemade cheese, if you think of any possible pasta or noodle dish, it can be made with homemade pasta, and that gives a huge amount of variety.

How to make pasta

1. Start with eggs.

Crack eggs into a small bowl, sniff each one to make sure it’s not off, fish out any bits of shell, and put them in a mixing bowl. Use around 2 eggs per hungry person.

2. Mix in flour and salt.

Use around half a teaspoon of salt for every five eggs. For flour, the amount you’ll need will depend on the kind of flour you’re using. I don’t measure. I just beat the eggs with a wooden spoon, mix in as much flour as I can mix with the spoon, and then keep adding flour, mixing with my hands. If the dough still seems sticky, keep adding more flour, kneading it in with your knuckles. Break the dough apart, and if it’s still sticky inside, sprinkle the sticky sides with more flour and knead that in with your knuckles. The trick to adding flour is to just add a small amount at a time, and keep adding until the dough is very stiff. I use 100% wholemeal wheat flour from my grain mill, but other kinds of wheat and spelt flour will work too.

3. Rest

Allow the dough to rest for at least half an hour, covered with a tea towel or plate. A longer rest is fine too.

4. Roll out and cut

Divide the dough into manageable pieces. Use a rolling pin or a clean glass bottle to roll each piece as thin as it will go, or as thin as you have patience for, dusting the dough with flour to prevent it from sticking. Use a butter knife to cut into strips, or your choice of pasta shapes. When you’ve cut some pasta shapes, spread them out on a tea towel (dish towel) to dry out. Keep in a single layer if possible, as they can get stuck together if you stack them too high.

5. Cook

This next bit happens really quickly once the water is boiling, so make sure you have the sauce ready, along with all the bowls, cutlery, drinks, telling everyone it’s nearly ready, and so on. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil over high heat. Add the pasta, and bring it back to the boil. Once it’s boiling, cook for three minutes. Drain in a colander. You can either mix the pasta into the sauce, or put the pasta in bowls and top with the sauce, whichever you prefer.

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This hearty one pot stew, based on the German dish Pichelsteiner, is my favourite meal to make with beef osso bucco (sliced bone-in beef shin).

The meat is first seared, and then slow cooked with the vegetables to tender perfection. The onions melt into the broth as the meat falls off the bone to form a sturdy broth that is full of deep flavour from simple, natural ingredients.

A meal to savour and enjoy again and again. Serve on its own, preferably with a slice of good rye bread on the side.

Makes around 16 serves. Leftovers reheat well.

Ingredients

Tallow or lard, for searing

Beef osso bucco from 1/4 of a cow (around 1.5kg to 2kg/3 to 5 pounds), or 1kg (2 pounds) boneless stewing beef

1kg (2 pounds) rump steak, round steak, or stewing beef

4 or 5 medium onions, chopped

a few grinds of black pepper

a mixture of carrots and turnips (or potatoes, or cabbage), as much as will fit in your pot

bone broth to cover (or water if you don’t have bone broth)

salt, to taste

optional cider vinegar, to taste

a large cabbage, chopped

optional handful or three of fresh parsley, chopped

Method

Heat a small amount of tallow in an eight litre (2 gallon) pot. When the fat is hot, sear both sides of the meat in batches.

Remove the meat from the pot and add a little more tallow, if needed, along with the onions. Sauté the onions until they are tender and fragrant, maybe starting to develop a little colour. Add the meat back into the pot, and top the pot up with as many chopped turnips and carrots as will fit, before covering the meat and vegetables with broth or water.

Bring to the boil with the lid on, reduce heat, and simmer on the stovetop, in a slow cooker, or in the oven for at least two hours, until the meat is very tender and easily falls of the bones. Taste the broth and add some salt, and maybe a splash of cider vinegar.

Remove the meat from the pot and cut or break it into bite-sized pieces. Remove the marrow from the bones and add this back into the stew. Return the meat to the broth. Top with chopped cabbage, and return to a simmer, cooking for 10 or 20 minutes, until the cabbage is tender.

Stir through the optional parsley, adjust seasonings with salt and cider vinegar, and serve on its own, or with bread.