I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making pasta, so I was excited when I found out that Enza, Melinda, and Mary had chosen a spinach lasagne dish from The Splendid Table as the challenge for the month.  In fact, I think Mom and I got to work on this one the weekend after the challenge was posted, though of course I’m not writing it up until late at night on the posting date…

This was a pretty elaborate meal — not only did we make the pasta, it was layered with a Bechamel sauce and “Country Style Ragu.”  This made a creamy, rich, meaty lasagne, without much tomato.  It was definitely different from what I think of as a traditional lasagane, but it was absolutely delicious.  It was an awful lot of trouble, but it was so good, I just might make it again.  If you want the recipes you can find them here.

And here’s a step-by-step of making the pasta.  I had a little bit of trouble getting the dough as smooth as I felt like it should’ve been  — I think it would be better if I get used to making dough without spinach first to get a better feel for what it should be like.  Also, rolling the dough out by hand was a bit of a challenge.  Couldn’t ever get it as thin as I wanted, and I’m thinking about trying to get my hands on a pasta maker before I try making pasta again.

Make a pile of flour on the counter with a well in the middle, and put the egg and spinach in the well:

Gradually mix the flour into the spinach and egg until it comes together in a ball:

Knead until smooth, then let rest:

Roll out the dough:

And then cut into strips:

Boil the noodles briefly, then layer in a dish with the Bechamel and Ragu.  Bake until bubbly, slice and enjoy!

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Tags: Daring Bakers, Pasta

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Daring Bakers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.