One time I was simmering milk to make lemon pudding, added a lot of lemon juice and zoink the whole thing thickened as I was stirring it and I was stunned as if witnessing magic.
I bet this dish will be even better with fresh mint or basil.
A friend of mine is from a small Colorado town, an outdoorsman with a rough weathered appearance, always had outdoor jobs, deep facial lines, wiry hair, and dresses in plaid shirts, Levis, western belt and boots; an extremely rough appearance. If you met him your impression would be, "Oh man, this guy is tough." And he is.
He told me just came back from Italy and while there took a class to learn how to make pasta.
He couldn't learn that from a book?
The teacher didn't speak English so the class used an interpreter. The friend and a few other people I don't know couldn't do anything right. Couldn't mix the water into the pile of semolina right, couldn't knead the dough right, couldn't roll the dough right, couldn't cut the dough right. The teacher kept trying to get them to understand a sort of frisson technique of kneading the dough where the dough is pushed forward with the bottom of the hands such that it sightly exceeds its elasticity and breaks as it goes instead of stretches, until it actually does stretch without breaking. That's how you know the gluten is developed. None of the small class could do this and the tiny woman became frustrated with their incompetence and actually started yelling a them angrily. They all thought it was hilarious. But the idea of this guy making pasta is even more funny. The interest is not what you would expect.
But why even bother when pasta is so cheap?
Because you can make whatever type pasta you want.
No comments:
Post a Comment