Dinner: Home-Made Noodles with Salmon
Home-made noodles with all-purpose flour
2 cups flour
2 large eggs
3-6 tablespoons flour
additional flour for kneading, rolling, and cutting
Mound flour on a work station (bowl, or cutting board is fine) & make a deep well in the center. Break eggs into well. With a fork, beat eggs lightly and stir in 2 tablespoons of the water. Using a circular motion, begin to draw flour from sides of well. Add 1 more tablespoon of water and continue mixing until flour is moistened. If necessary, add more water, a tablespoon at a time. When dough becomes stiff, use your hands to finish mixing. Pat dough into a ball and knead a few times to hep flour absorb liquid. (Note: when I did this, I had trouble getting all of the flour to incorporate. I ended up using probably 3/4 of the original 2 cups of flour, because I wasn't sure if I could keep adding water after it was a ball. My noodles came out great, but they may have been denser than if I had used all the flour. I guess, practice will make perfect!)
Clean & lightly flour the work surface. Sprinkle dough with flour, if needed. Knead by hand for 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Cover and let dough rest for 20 minutes.
Roll out 1/4 of the dough at a time to desired thinness. Keep unrolled portion covered. When all dough is rolled, cut strips into desired shapes (to do this, fold dough several times like a jelly roll, cut). Yield of hand-rolled noodles may vary, but about 4 cups is usual.
Noodles with Cabbage
1 recipe all-purpose pasta or 8 ounces packaged wide noodles
1 tsp salt
4 cups shredded cabbage (about 1/2 a head--I would recommend doubling this, in hindsight)
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Cut fresh pasta into wide noodle.
Sprinkle salt over cabbage, toss lightly, and let stand for 30 minutes. Squeeze cabbage to release liquid; discard liquid. Melt butter in a wide frying pan over medium-high heat. Add cabbage, caraway seeds, sugar, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is crisp-tender (about 5 minutes). Keep warm.
Cook noodles in a large kettle of boiling salted water until al dente (1-2 minutes for fresh noodles). Drain, then toss with cabbage mixture before serving. Makes 6 servings
Pan-roasted salmon fillets
5 oz salmon fillets (however many you'd like)
lemon juice
salt
Lay salmon fillets in a baking dish in a single layer, skin side up. Squeeze fresh lemon juice evenly over them & salt to your liking. Let stand at room temperature about 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450. In a large ovenproof nonstick sate pan, heat olive oil over high heat. Add the fillets, skin side down. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until the skin is very crisp, about 5 minutes. Transfer the saute pan to the oven and bake the fillets until the flesh is opaque on he outside by still slightly translucent in the center. Remove from the oven and transfer to a warm platter. Serve with fresh lemon to taste.
Home-made noodle recipe & noodles with cabbage recipe taken from the Sunset Pasta Cookbook, copyright 1980
Pan-roasted salmon fillet recipe adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Fish Cookbook, copyright 2002
Both cookbooks highly recommended!!
