Making Gluten Free Pasta

I don't know about you, but I find dried gluten free pasta rather disappointing. Some of the pasta I've had has produced the most horrible starchy fluid as it's cooked, making it rather difficult to drain and not particularly tasty to eat! After a rather dramatic disaster with some GF spaghetti, resulting in me throwing it all in the bin out of frustration, it finally reached the point where I had to consider making my own.

I hear you gasp in amazement at my culinary dedication... But hold your breath for a minute! I was very blessed this Christmas to receive the pasta maker attachment to my Kenwood from Granny. So, for the first time today, I got it all out, read the instructions, and...made pasta.

The recipe that Kenwood supplies is obviously not gluten free. However, instead of plain flour, I used rice flour, figuring that a very fine grain would make the best pasta (pasta flour is very fine-ground wheat flour). In went the eggs, salt and flour, mixing in the Kenwood for 2 minutes to a breadcrumb consistency. Then on went the attachment, with a tagliatelli screen. I put in the first few spoonfuls of the mixture... And out came tagliatelli!

But the real test is in the tasting, obviously! I decided to make Carbonara, following a Good Housekeeping recipe. Pasta cooked for about 5-6 minutes, while I fried the bacon and prepared the sauce, it all got mixed in together, went on two plates...and it was delicious!! You wouldn't have even known it was the same food as the dried GF pasta, and it was streets ahead of dried wheat pasta! (Even my husband said so!)

So my pasta making adventure was successful! And not only is it quick, easy and cheap, the pasta also keeps in the fridge for a couple of days. I have yet to try freezing it (an experiment for another day, I think!), but I am assuming that, as you can freeze fresh wheat pasta for up to a month, GF pasta won't be any different.

I would absolutely recommend any GF cook getting an electric pasta maker, either the Kenwood attachment (which allows you to do tagliatelli, spaghetti, penne, lasagne, macaroni & large macaroni) or a stand-alone one. The results are wonderful!

Thank you Granny!