Recipes Cooking

Spinach Pasta

Ive been meaning to make this ever since I held the birthday party for Dad, since this is the ideal pasta for Spinach Lasagne. I finally got around to it! And then when I was making it, I remembered to take a photo of how it should look before the mixture is pressed into a dough, but forgot to take a picture of the actual dough. Oh well. Sorry. Youll see the finished product tomorrow when I do something with the pasta...

6 to 8 servings
about 2 hours, divided over time


8 cups spinach leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 large eggs
about 2 1/2 cups kamut or durum flour

Wash and pick over the spinach, and cook it until well wilted. Drain well and cool. Take it up in handfuls, and squeeze well to remove as much moisture as possible.

Put the dry spinach into the bowl of the food processor with the salt and olive oil. Process until it is very well chopped. Break in the eggs, one at a time, and again process until smooth and well blended.

Put in about 1 1/2 cups of the flour and process again until well mixed. Continue to process, adding in the flour several tablespoons at a time, until the mixture begins to form little beads. Once it does, it can be turned out onto a sheet of plastic film and pressed together into a solid mass. Its important to get the amount of flour just right. Too little, and the pasta will fall apart when cooked. Too much and it will be hard to roll out, and tough. It will take a little practice to get it right. You may wish to take a bit out every so often as you are mixing it, and pinch it together and roll it out to see how it handles.

Once the dough is mixed, wrap the dough in the plastic and leave it to rest for at least 15 minutes.

Divide the dough into 4 quarters and roll each one out as thin as possible with a little of the flour sprinkled onto the board or countertop to prevent the dough from sticking. The dough should be stiff but flexible.

Cut the pasta as desired for lasagne, ravioli, noodles etc.

It should be kept loosely wrapped in plastic in the fridge until you are ready to cook it.

Drop it into a large pot of salted boiling water, as with other pasta. The exact time to cook it will depend on how thin the dough has been rolled - probably anywhere between 6 and 10 minutes. You will need to watch it carefully.