Thanks to Faith (and her mother-in-law) we've been making pasta on end recently. It's been unusually cool here in the Midwest and knowing it wouldn't last long (and it didn't), we took advantage by nesting up our fresh pasta and stashing it away in the freezer. The best part? We won't even need to heat up the cook top come dinner...
... as all it takes is our handy-dandy, electric kettle.
What You Need
Ingredients
Fresh pasta
Water
Equipment
Electric kettle
Instructions
We take 2 portions of pasta out of the freezer and set it in a bowl.
Next we set the kettle (full) to boil (with the addition of some salt) and once it's clicked off, we simply pour it over the top. There should be at least twice as much water to pasta.
In a few short minutes of steeping in the hot, salty brew (depending on the thickness and type of noodle its between 2-5 minutes) it's ready to go.
Now we don't claim to be an expert at pasta making just yet, so please ignore our unruly little nest, we're still learning. We've found that freezing individual portions makes it easy to cook off when there's just two of us at home while still giving us the ability to cook for a crowd!
Sometimes we'll use this trick for warm dishes, but more often than not and especially in the summer, we love our noodles cold in dishes such as:
• Recipe: Cold Peanut Sesame Noodles
• Shanghai-ish Cold Noodles and Ginger Beer Taste Test
• Sumo Sunomono: Quick Noodle Salad with Pickles
If we aren't feeling like following a recipe, it's nice to make a mix of what we have in the pantry or freezer mixed with the fresh vegetables we have on hand from the garden or store. A little of this and a little of that have been known to make a meal in no time and not having to heat up the kitchen to do it is an extra bonus!
Related: Weekend Project: Make Pasta!
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Post originally published August 5, 2009
(Images: Sarah Rae Trover)
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Comments (5)
Very clever, that tip plus the recent acquisition of a Pasta Attachment for the stand mixer, it's all so much easier.
Emily
Great idea! And I imagine that this should be especially helpful for you since your accident Sarah Rae. :)
Shouldn't you put the salt on the pasta instead of putting it in your kettle? I know you can wash the kettle out, but I guess I just wouldn't want anything buy water in there.
Keen observation onebravegirl! It's come in handy several times, especially since the electric kettle turns itself off!
Melissa - We rinse our kettle immediately after to remove any residue, it's a matter of personal preference, we don't condone using your appliances outside of manufacturers instructions... we tend to live on the edge (and have accidentally had salty tea once... or... um, twice).
What I've found also works is to pop it in the microwave for a while with excess water, though I'm still fiddling with exact times for the different types. Very useful when you don't have the burner space/access/don't want to wait for both the water to boil and the pasta to cook. I've yet to find anything that takes more than about 15 minutes, at least in my microwave.