If you want to add a bit of zip to your dish for just pennies, make your own Lemon Poppyseed pasta and serve it with lemon chicken drizzled with lemon cream sauce. Here’s how . . .
Homemade pasta is extremely simple to make, but there is a brief learning curve. This particular recipe calls for Durum Semolina flour which isn’t always the easiest type of flour to find, in fact, I purchased mine on Amazon by the case when I saw it go on sale.
The difference between Semolina flour and all purpose flour is that Semolina is a coarser grain flour made from Durum Wheat and it creates a heartier textured pasta when it’s cooked.
Using all purpose flour will result in a “softer” pasta that will bloat considerably more and can “mush” easily if overcooked. Sometimes I mix the flours half and half just to get the right consistency at a lower price. It also helps to ensure that you follow the do’s and don’ts of perfect pasta cooking.
You’ll Need:
1 cup Durum Semolina Flour
1 tsp Freshly Grated lemon peel (minced finely)
2 tsp poppy seeds
1 egg
1-2 Tbs Water (or Lemon Juice, for extra lemon flavor!)
Measure the flour onto a large, smooth cutting board. Make a well in the middle and dump in the grated lemon peel and poppy seeds, then mix them together. A stainless steel pastry scraper works fantastic for this because it keeps your hands clean, scraping the board as you go. Make another well and add the egg and half of the water.
Mix them all together to fully incorporate.
If you need to, add a bit more water by drizzling it across the top.
Once the ingredients are all together, knead the dough until it is smooth. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes.
Kitchenaid Method:
In this case, we’re using a Pasta Extruder to make Lemon Poppyseed Bucatini. Attach the extruder to your KitchenAid, break the dough into walnut sized pieces and drop them into the extruder.
Slice off the pasta as they reach the desired size.
Repeat until all of the dough is used.
Hand Method:
Cut the dough ball into 4 pieces. Knead each piece and then run it through a hand crank roller, fold into thirds and repeat until you have a smooth thin sheet. Cut the sheet into very thin noodles. Since this recipe contains poppyseeds, don’t try to go too thin or the dough will break during the drying process. Nest the pasta right away.
Alternatively, there are a number of inexpensive hand-crank extruders available too.
Ravioli Method:
Roll the pasta out into sheets, place on a ravioli form, indent gently, fill with your favorite filling, we recommend Creamy Chicken Chive (mix 4 oz cream cheese with half a can of chicken (drained) and 2 tsp chopped chives, salt & pepper to taste) Follow the Step By Step Tutorial Here for making your own Ravioli
