Made my own stock. The bought ones are tasteless. Concentrated that a bit, using a heat diffuser plate (the pan was thin steel) and stirring lots. Measured out 950ml for the canneloni. Seasoned the stock.

When I made the pasta dough I used two chook eggs and one duck egg plus the yolk from a duck egg. Nice rich egg pasta. 50% plain flour, 25% durrum (high protein) flour and 25% durrum semolina.

Cooked the chicken in the stock, strained then cooked the mushrooms in some of the stock, strained that back. Lovely rich stock! When the spinach had wilted I saw nice green liquid in the pan, strained that into the stock, waste not want not.

The pasta rolled out without any trouble. Trick is, grab a portion of dough (I cut mine into quarters with a dough scraper) stretch it, fit in the machine set to “0” which is the widest setting, roll, set machine to 1, roll, roll again on setting 2 THEN fold the strip of dough double, pressing fingertips into the dough, roll through on 0, 1,2 etc. Once past 2 you can advance the machine in steps of 2, 2, 4, 6.

Canneloni sheets are boiled for a minute or two then fished out, run under cold water, spread out, filled and rolled up then cooked again, hence I stopped rolling at setting 6. Ravioli which are little pillows enclosed in pasta are rolled out quite thin, setting 8, else there is too much pasta for the filling.

Once a batch of sheets are spread on a teatowel to drain lose no time in adding filling and rolling the pasta into the little tubes of delight.

The fillings need to be seasoned really well. I added a bit of salt, a lot of pepper and a thin sprinkle of chiliflakes. Cumin or cumin seeds should work well too, anything to boost the flavor. Crushed garlic but I didn’t have any {sob!}

Plenty leftovers, will pack them into containers and bung them in the freezer, easy meals for when I can’t be stuffed cooking. Yes, that happens!

Outsource.

It's not listed on their website but this place makes fresh pasta every day and it's so reasonably priced.


https://ppapa.com.au/deli/

Tuesday I am off to the Central Market again.

Will buy chicken, mushrooms, herbs and spinach. For ravioli.

Various combos of chicken, ’shrooms and spinach. Maybe spinach and cheese to extend the flavor range. Nice sauce too.

Ravioli, little pillows of pasta enclosing a filling. Three things to pay attention to:

1. Two layers of pasta enclosing a bit of filling. So make the pasta nice and thin, else too much pasta for the filling.

2. When putting the filling into the pockets in the pasta (in the ravioli frame) do NOT get any filling on the bits of pasta around the filling else the two layers of pasta will not stick and the ravioli will explode in the pan of boiling water! Not exactly what we want!

3. So you have a heap of lovely ravioli, no problems now, right? Not quite—there might be air in the pocket of filling and that air is likely to expand and explode your ravioli. So prick (not a sexist term, honest! ) a tiny hole through the pasta in each hole—air can just escape through the hole, no explosions!

Ravioli and canneloni are two of my fave types of pasta.

However, there are MANY more types of pasta. Have made many—but all are flat forms, no vermicelli, spaghetti or macaroni, no spirali etc. For that I need a pasta extruder.

My magnificent Kenwood Chef Platinum Major has a pasta extruder attachment. Lots of dies available—all with bronze outlets—most important, cheap extruders/dies are made of plastic and give smooth pasta that holds no sauce: useless!

My Kenwood has a 1400W motor, think it will cope with a half kilo pasta dough no problem!

Bought two duck breasts and a sachet duck stock.

Cook the breasts in the stock 20 minutes or so, strain reserving stock. Let meat cool, cut up fine.

No pomegranate, will use a small jar of the blood orange juice I canned. Reduce stock and juice.

Chop up a small onion, fry, add mushrooms and fry. Let it cool, cut up fine, . When duck is cool, chop up fine, mix duck, onion and mushrooms. Make pasta etc. Make tomato sauce from tin of peeled, serve, enjoy.

The duck stock + blood orange juice reduction was very tasty! Savory from the duck, tangy from the orange juice.

Next time will add more OJ and thicken with double cream.

Utterly delicious!