Pasta

Passed on from Roes....




A new cool show on "Cooking Channel" (not Food Network). Last night I learned how to make "pasta" that was documented from 1190AD. Semolina flour and water, knead, and pinch off very small, unshaped balls. Let them dry. You could then travel with them. Prepare it by covering with boiling water (like oatmeal??), letting it steep, sprinkling it with cinnamon and fresh herb, like parsley. To me cinnamon and parsley do not sound the greatest together, but you could play with that a little. It was documented in Italy, but believed that this method came from the Arabs, traveling long distances. I can see our next feast having a pasta dish!! Could it be war food? Sounds simple enough.

This actually sounds a lot like a Roman/ Byzantine recipe I have. They would dry the pasta out so it could travel well (Just like we buy it in the store).

My favorite period pasta recipe is ‘Meat Ravioli in Broth’ from “Libro de arte coquinaria” by Maestro Martino. Page 144- “Ravioli in tempo di carne”.

The Translation-
Ravioli for meat days- To make ten platefuls: take a half libra of aged cheese and a little of another fat cheese and and a libra of fat hog’s tripe or calf head, and cook it in water until very tender. Then chop it well and take nice herbs, thouroughly chopped, and some pepper, cloves, and ginger; and if you add the chopped breast of a capon, so much the better. And mix all these things together. Then make the dough very thin and enclose the mixture in the dough as it should be. And these ravioli should be no larger then half a chestnut; and cook them in a broth of capon or good meat, colored yellow by saffron when it boils. And let them boil for the time [it takes to say] two paternosters. Then serve and put on top grated cheese and sweet spices mixed together. You can make similar ravioli with breast of pheasant, pheasant, partridge, and other birds.

They are great for feasts because you can make them ahead and freeze them for one less thing to think about on feast day =)

-Galiena