Pasta Workshop at Sur La Table
This past Wednesday, Peter and I headed over to the newest location of Sur La Table for a Pasta Workshop cooking class. This was my gift to Peter this past Christmas because Peter has been wanting to make fresh, homemade pasta with me for the longest time. When I saw that they had this class on their January calendar, I immediately bought two spaces.
Both Peter and I used to help our grandmothers help make fresh pasta when we were kids, but we've never attempted it on our own, so taking this class enabled us to do it ourselves from start to finish and demystified the process entirely. We both knew it wasn't difficult, but there are certain techniques and tips that are important to know when making fresh pasta dough and we had forgotten some of those, so it was good to get instruction along with the hands-on experience. And can I just say how much fun this class was? Peter and I had a total blast! I brought my little point-and-shoot camera with me to get a few pictures during our class so I could share them with you.
The professional kitchen was brightly lit, organized and very well appointed with state-of-the-art appliances, stainless steel countertops, professional-grade ovens and stovetop, and plenty of practical storage. Above the large center island where you see the chef chopping was a large mirror tilted at an angle, so we could all see what she was doing at every stage of the food preparation.
The stations were set up before we arrived with the pre-measured ingredients, aprons and a recipe booklet. There were three stations with six people at each station. Peter and I absolutely loved the long wood board topped tables we worked on. The base was made of metal and sat on casters that locked into place. We wanted to take one home with us!
Our instructor's name was Alexia and she was an excellent teacher--articulate and very knowledgeable. I totally forgot to take a picture of the dough-making process (mainly because my hands were covered in flour and egg), but once the dough was ready to roll out, Chef Alexia demonstrated the proper way to roll the pieces of dough through the hand-cranked pasta machine. Isn't that a beautiful sheet of pasta?
Next, it was our turn to roll out the dough our group made. We learned how to make both plain egg and flour pasta as well as porcini mushroom pasta. The only difference between the two is that our group added dried porcini mushrooms that had been finely ground in a spice grinder, and added it to our flour and egg mixture. Our group had some trouble because our dough came out very dry, but Chef Alexia saved it by gradually misting our dough with small amounts of water and kneading it to get the correct texture so that we could roll it through the pasta machine.
The porcini mushroom fettuccine
The egg fettuccine--we loved the pasta racks that we used in the class and bought one for ourselves!
We didn't just learn how to make pasta during our class. We also learned how to make three delicious sauces: Parsley, Sage & Walnut Pesto, Sun-Dried Tomato, Rosemary and Pancetta Cream Sauce (my favorite), and Tuscan Sausage and Caramelized Onion Ragu. Chef Alexia involved some class attendees in making all three of the sauces, which I thought was excellent because it was another hands-on opportunity for those who helped out. Chef Alexia did an very good job of asking us questions about ingredients and techniques and taught us basic cooking principles that pertained to each sauce that was prepared. One of the most important lessons she taught us is to leave the food alone when its cooking in the pan. She told us that ingredients don't need to be stirred and "fiddled with" that much when they are cooking, especially when you are sauteeing the aromatics for the base of a sauce. We also learned how and when to add salt to sauces and how to taste for seasoning.
Once our three sauces were finished, it was time to cook the pasta. Fresh pasta does not take much time to cook at all, so it was a matter of a few short minutes before the fettuccine were plated and dressed with each of the sauces.
The porcini fettuccine plated with each of the three sauces.
The egg fettuccine plated and dressed with each of the three sauces. I loved the platters they used!
Time to sample our delicious work! Although I'm not a huge fan of mushrooms, I wanted to try the porcini mushroom fettuccine and they were quite delicious! The mushroom flavor was mild and not too overpowering. Both types of fettuccine were silky and cooked perfectly until al dente. And the sauces were incredible. The pesto was vibrant with the bright flavor of the parsley, the earthy sage and just enough garlic to give it a piquant bite without being too strong. The Tuscan Sausage ragu was hearty and the caramelized onions gave it a fantastic depth of flavor, while the rosemary's flavor came through in the background just enough. And the Sun-Dried Tomato Pancetta Cream Sauce was luscious--it coated the fettuccine perfectly. The pancetta was crisped just enough, while still retaining its meaty texture and the sun-dried tomatoes gave the sauce just a hint of sweetness with incredible depth of flavor. This sauce was hands-down my favorite.
What a fun evening we had! We're already looking at February's calendar to see which class we want to try next!
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What an excellent post!
I love Sur La Table. It's a foodies dream come true! The pasta class looked like fun. I bet it all tasted great too!