Tomorrow April 15th was supposed to be the last day of the Corona lockdown. Of course it was pretty much understood that the confinement would continue, so it was no big shock to hear our Prime Minister directing us to stay put till May 3rd. Well that’s the date for now … one has to wait and watch how things go after that.

In my case, I have been stuck at home since March 5th. I returned from Gujarat on March 4th and I have not even stuck a toe out of my gate since then. May 3rd will make it 2 whole months of not travelling or even moving out of the apartment. Well, instead of whining, which is a pointless activity in terms of changing the situation, I am trying to create new recipes for my human guinea pigs and also trying to unearth some well hidden creations that were cast aside for the love of travelling 😀

So today let us revisit the beet pasta that was one of my prettier productions, which was made easier by my Kitchen Aid pasta attachment. Remember the earlier Whole Grain Vegan Crackers?

The Kitchen Aid stand mixer was put into action to make the dough and the pasta roller did the rest. That simple.

Fret not if you do not have the machine, for your hands will do a sufficiently good job too.

Beet pasta –

The amazing Kitchen Aid pasta maker attachment helps us create our own pasta right from scratch. And with my penchant for using whole grain flours, I have also incorporated millets as well as natural coloring agents like beet puree for a more visually appealing output.  Beet puree adds that brilliant red which fortunately holds even after cooking.

I have added egg in the recipe but if you want to omit the egg, just add more liquid (in this case beet puree).

Recipe for Beet pasta – 

Time – 1.5 hr

Serves – 2

PRODUCTS FEATURED:

Kitchen Aid Bowl Lift Stand Mixer

Kitchen Aid pasta maker attachment (lasagna and fettucine)

– INGREDIENTS:

For the pasta

1 –  Mixed Millet flour – ½ cup

2  – All purpose flour (maida) – 1.5 cup

3 – Salt: 1/2 teaspoon

4 –  Olive oil – 2 tablespoon

5 – Egg – 1

6 –  Beet puree – approx. 5 tablespoon (see notes)

METHOD:

-Add the dry ingredients (1-3) into the bowl of the Kitchen Aid Bowl Lift Stand Mixer and blend for 1 minute at speed 2, using the paddle attachment. Use the splash guard to prevent the flour from flying out.

– Switch to the dough hook. Add the egg and olive oil. Add 3 tablespoons of beet puree and run the machine for 2 minutes on Speed 2. You can discard the splash guard once the wet and dry ingredients come together and stop splashing.

– Increase the speed to 4 and continue running for 4-5 min. If the dough feels very dry, add more beet puree. I added a total of 5 tablespoons. The amount will depend on the thickness of your puree and the nature of your flour.

– Scrape down the sides and run on speed 4 till the dough comes together and is firm but pliable to the touch (something like a stiff puri dough). I ran the machine for a total of 10 minutes.

–  If you are doing this without a machine then just do the above manually.

– Take out the dough and pat it into a ball. Cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 min or overnight.

– Divide into 4 parts. My dough was 400gms so I divided into 4x100gms each.

– Work with one part at a time. Keep the other parts cling wrapped to prevent drying out. Flatten the dough with your hands or roll with a rolling pin and pass it through the flat pasta roller which you need to attach to your KitchenAid stand mixer.

– Set the knob to 1 which is the widest setting. Lightly dust the dough with dry flour (only if dough is sticky). Feed in the dough once or twice at speed 1.

– Fold the dough over and pass it through the roller at subsequent settings of 2, 3 etc until you get the desired thickness. Being a millet blend dough, I stopped at size 3, to avoid breakage.

– Change the attachment to the Fettucine roller (or shape of choice). Pass the sheet of dough through it to get strips of dough. Curl the dough into a nest with your fingers, as it descends from the roller and place it on a lightly floured surface.

– If making the pasta by hand, just roll the dough into a thin sheet and cut into strips using a pizza cutter.

– Do the same with all the balls of dough.

– This can be sundried to use at a later date or it can be cooked right away by dropping into boiling water for approximately 1 minute and straining. If dried, then it may need a longer cooking time approx. 4-5 min.

-Use the cooked pasta along with any sauce of choice.

Notes –

– Beet puree is made by grinding beets that are cooked till soft and skinned.

– Variants of the pasta can be made by adding herbs or any other vegetable that adds color. The white pasta in the above picture, has added herbs and no beet.

I hope you will successfully try this recipe and I would really appreciate if you leave your feedback in the Blog comments.

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Apr 14 th, 2020