About Laurie Boucher and Her Pasta Instruction Business
If you want to learn how to make homemade pasta, I have the recipe for you right here. This recipe comes from pasta instructor Laurie Boucher of Baltimore Home Cook. She is one of our podcast guests, and you can find the show, and more information about her, here. Laurie is a self-described attorney turned pasta-preneur, and is the woman behind the Instagram account @BaltimoreHomeCook. We discuss how she got into pasta-making, and her pasta-related activities which include selling pasta boards and hard to find Sardinian pasta cutters, as well as the pasta-shaped jewelry and ornaments that she makes. She also does pasta-making classes. We talk about her culinary school experience, some of her favorite culinary resources, and the new Arcobaleno pasta extruder that she recently picked up.
Garganelli can be formed on a smooth surface, or a ridged or beautifully textured surface. Because of its texture, it helps sauce cling to the pasta. You can use a small gnocchi board, a butter paddle, a silicone sushi mat (all easily found online), or some other hand carved textured board.
Do you have a favorite homemade pasta recipe? If so, I’d love to know. Leave a comment below.
Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups semolina or semola rimacinata
1 TBS crushed saffron
2/3 cup hot water
*extra semolina for dusting your finished pasta
small 1/4 ” dowel or end of a wooden spoon (can use different sized dowels for different sized garganelli), silicone sushi mat, gnocchi board or butter paddle
Instructions
Crush your saffron with a mortar/pestle or with your fingertips. Add saffron to hot water, stir, cover and let steep for 30 minutes.
In a medium bowl, add your flour and make a small well. Add in the water, stirring with a fork to incorporate. Make sure you get all the saffron in there!
Once you have a shaggy dough formed, dump the dough onto your work surface and knead 10-15 minutes by hand. If the dough seems dry, spritz with a bit of water, if the dough seems sticky, add a bit of flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
Once you have a smooth ball of pasta dough, wrap in cling film and let rest for 30 minutes. Using a pasta machine, sheet the dough until it is at the second thinnest setting. Cut out 3″ squares using a knife or a pasta bicycle.
Place your small square of dough onto the textured surface like a diamond. Place your dowel in the center of the pasta, pull the bottom tip up and over and with pressure roll the pasta around the dowel.
Remove the garganelli, place on a semolina dusted baking sheet. Rest at room temperature for 1 hour and then cover and refrigerate or flash freeze.
Cook in salted boiling water for about 4 minutes, but test your pasta for desired tenderness.
