So I figured I'd try a few things when I was making some fresh pasta one day. First of all, I tried laying colored strips side by side and feeding them through the pasta machine. It really didn’t work and I ended up with holes in my pasta. Then, I remembered seeing an episode of Cake Boss where they were making striped fondant. They layed strips of different color fondant on a base and ran it through the press. So why not pasta?
On this particular day I was making Lobster/Crab ravioli and it took me a long time and there was a point I was thinking it was a waste for something served as an appetizer. I have to say though…it’s all worth it when your friends eat it and you hear the ooohs and ahhhhs and they say it is delicious! I served it with a smoked salmon cream sauce and it really was so good!
I made a batch of pasta dough with 1 cup Semolina flour, 2 cups Unbleached all purpose flour, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt. I made extra because I wasn’t sure how much I would need for stripes! The leftovers, I just cut into Linguine. Pasta recipe
After getting the dough into a rough ball I divided it in half. I kept one half plain and split the other half into two. I steamed and pureed spinach and used it for ¼. Used the other quarter for the red dough, I pureed roasted pimento pepper (that was the only think I could think of that would be tasty and make it red!)
I kneaded the dough separately…adding the coloring into the red and green dough.
I rolled out and cut a strip of red and green dough with the Fettucini cutter and let it hang for a few minutes.
I rolled out a plain pasta strip to fit the ravioli pan. Layed strips of the cut red and green pasta ad pressed it down. Fed it through the Pasta Machine again and “Voila” you have stripes!!!! I LOVE making pasta!.
You cook these for about 10 minutes, add them to your sauce for about a minute. Serve and top with additional sauce.
I made some striped, some green and some red....They were just so pretty!
Pureed spinach and Pimento for the coloring...
The rough dough after dividing and adding the Spinach and Pimento puree
Laying the individual strips on the base pasta...
WOW!!! It works when you pass it through the Pasta machine!
Filling the pasta with the filling...
Add a top layer of Pasta and press all the edges together to seal. I made these about 8 hours before I boiled them. I just covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator. You can freeze them at this point though. Lay them individually on a floured sheet pan, cover and freeze and then take them off the pan and put them into a freezer bag for later usage.
I served these with this sauce. It is so good...Smoked Salmon Cream Sauce
This was the first time I ever made this recipe and I was getting a little nervous because I tend to over-fill. Not a problem though as everything just boiled up so well!
A very elegant and lovely appetizer or main course!
Enjoy!
