Old Bland ScratchFresh pasta has been a recurrent topic; someone mentioned in passing the existence of a dish called Pasta Diablo, or something along those lines. As described, it was a plate of fresh semolina pasta, made having shot the dough through with hot peppers, yielding self-spicing noodles. All it was said to need as a dressing was a bit of good olive oil. I assume that it was also eaten with a good grate of Parmesan, because why would anyone eat pasta without that? We can think of no good reasons.
(I will insert here that I speak only of Parmisano Reggiano, that moist crumbly cheese that sports the pretty purple mark on the rind, reared in Parma and sold in lumps off the wheel. I do not mean the vacuum-packed market parmesans that are the color of cream, and I do not mean that stuff in a box.)
Pasta Diablo: I have set out to make the stuff. Everything to do with making fresh pasta is scaled against the egg: all of my recipes so far ask for some flour per egg, some this per egg, some that per egg. We have some lovely dried and shredded aleppo pepper, and I decided to start with that. It is smoky, potent stuff, with a nice late burn and a deep red color.
For the first pass, I used several healthy pinches of pepper per egg. From this, we ended up with a nicely speckled pasta that didn't taste like pepper at all. I ramped the pepper up to a teaspoon and a half per egg, which gave the finished noodle a nice lightly orange hue, but still no pepper flavor. I was to have gone with a full tablespoon for the last batch, but I blinked at the last minute, and went with a little less. This time, the pasta was deeply orange and beautifully dotted, thick strands of gentle flame. They scantly teased the tongue with heat. Clearly, I am doing something wrong.
It's not an impotent pepper; it was pointed out that I ought to taste the pasta water, to see how much is leaching out. My experiments must also now branch out into different grinds, and different peppers. We shall see. There is plenty of summer left.
All content under copyright by the author. Dancing is permitted. The strange deltic glyphs in the sand under tidal flow are a pleasure to watch in their deepening. Offer not valid in Kansas. We put it down and then we lost it. It all happens in the corner of the eye. Commentary accepted at comment@goob.com, although the traps are agressive and the pointy bits simply drip with dark liquour. We have a dog, but we do not own it. Thank you.