Why make pasta when you can buy it?  Well, I’m about to give you literally an infinite number of reasons…

Reason 1 – First take a look here to see how easy it is to make pasta.  Then come back and we’ll talk further.

Reason 2 – you can choose your shape, thickness, etc.  I love to make tagliatelle a bit thicker than normal so it has a bit of bite to it, but you can make literally any shape you want – linguine, penne, lasagne, pappardelle, fagioloni, the list goes on and on. Or make up your own – maybe try your hand at a mobius strip?  And all this from the same piece of dough, but most importantly to your exacting specifications.

Reasons 3 through to infinity – filled pasta!  Ravioli, tortellini, canneloni, faggotini, agnolotti – there’s a ton of them, but it doesn’t matter what you call it or the shape you make it, what really matters is what you stuff it with, and this is where the magic happens…this is the true omnipotence of the pastafarian¹.

But first, a quick run down on how to stuff your pasta successfully because there are a couple of pitfalls that could ruin your pasta stuffing day.  Firstly you want your pasta rolled out to one of the lowest two settings on your machine.  Flour everything as you go and don’t get a drop of liquid near your workspace because things will start to stick, and you know what they say when things get sticky……nope? Actually, neither do I.  When you have a length of pasta on your floured workbench, throw some shapes – cut squares with a knife, use a round cutter, whatever, but make sure they’re a reasonable size so they’re easier to handle.  Get a dollop of your filling and put it in the centre without dropping any on the edges you’re going to stick – if you do, that piece is generally shafted and won’t stick and you can dump it.  Gently squeeze your filling and wrap your dough around it (or put another piece on top if you’re that way inclined), dip your finger in water and smear it on one of the sides you want to stick. As you close it, squeeze as much of the air out as possible to stop them exploding, and squeeze firmly all the way round.  When you put them down, make sure it’s on a floured surface and the pasta is floured too, otherwise they’ll be sticking together.

OK, now for the infinite part – fillings and sauces.  When I make pasta, I like to have a proper filled pasta fest and make 3 or 4 different courses each with different fillings and sauces.  As I may have mentioned, the combinations are endless.  They’re pretty simple too though – they’re not the sort of things that take lots of ingredients with hours of chopping, you don’t need much to fill your pasta and I find less is more with your sauce.  Having said that, any kind of pulled meat is a winner so, if say you have some stock on the boil, throw in a bit of chuck steak, or pork shoulder, or lamb forequarter, and save that for pulling into a ragu to make your stuffing with – it’ll also add flavour to your stock, which can be used as a broth for your pasta to sit in. Or the next time you make a ragu or pulled pork, just keep some aside for your next pasta stuffing.  If you haven’t thought months ahead (like I sometimes weirdly do) and don’t have a bit of pulled meat hanging around (fnar), you can always use mince or finely chop some meat.

I think the trick is to just use 2 or 3 ingredients in your pasta stuffing and then follow a theme through to your sauce. Keep stuffings relatively dry and sauces intense and minimal or lighter and brothy.  And you don’t need to make much of either as both go an awful long way in this context.

Last week I fried up some minced beef, threw in some pine nuts, let it cool and then crumbled some gorgonzola through – filling done. I then deglazed the same pan by throwing in a dollop of leftover tomato puree and half a glass of white wine and reduced right down for just a tiny smattering of thick rich tomato sauce to sparingly drizzle over the cooked ravioli. A swirl of olive oil and a smidge of parmesan and it was a taste sensation.  A kind of Bolognese theme with the twist of pine nuts and gorgonzola, but tomato and meat elements individual and intense – beautiful.  And all using up left over ingredients that had seen better days.

Prawns are another stuffable favourite of mine – buy a few raw prawns, peel them and make a broth from the shells (fry the shells, add water or white wine, maybe garlic, onion, tomato puree, star anise or whatever, but keep it simple).  Chop the meat and stuff your pasta with it and whatever else you fancy – parsley, garlic, lemon zest, chilli and lime – any two or three ingredients that will give you something special.  Obviously filled pasta cooks in no time, so if you’re putting the prawn in raw, don’t make it too thick or it won’t cook in the centre, or you can flash fry it first which also gives a different flavour.  Place your prawny parcels in a bowl and generously cover with your broth to almost make a soup.  Uhuh – nice.

Yup, nice indeed, but let’s not forget you can extend this to any seafood theme – scallop meat, oyster flesh, vongole, just plain old white fish would all make great stuffings that you can add a little excitement too, even lobster or crab meat if you’re feeling richer than me!  Just add your own little twists of excitement to your fillings.  And don’t throw anything away – shells can be used for flavouring a broth for your pasta to swim in, or the broth reduced right down for a more intense flavour, perhaps a little cream added, or passata for a tomato-y sauce – do you see where I’m coming from with the infinity aspect of this article???

This one time, in Scot-Land (said in whiny American pie voice) we made rabbit pie (not American pie – this is confusing) and part of the process is to simmer the rabbit for an hour first – so I smuggled some of the rabbit out of the pot and some of the stock and made rabbit, mushroom and blue cheese tortellini in rabbit broth.

Another time I took pork mince, fried it up with some sunblushed tomatoes, threw in some parsley and made ravioli with it. For a little something wet to put over the top I had my first crack at burnt sage butter and THAT was a revelation.  I just chucked a lump of butter in a hot pan, and when it stopped frothing and started browning I threw in a few sage leaves, let it fry for a minute or so and poured it on. It really was nothing short of awesome!

What about minced chicken stuffing with a creamy tarragon sauce? What about some duck liver and thyme stuffing with a buttery brandy sauce (don’t turn your nose up, that’s everyone’s favourite paté!)

The point is – use your imagination and go nuts – I don’t know why wrapping something up in pasta works so well, but it does…go try it…go…now.

¹ “the true omnipotence of the pastafarian” – pastafarianism is a religion worshiping the great spaghetti monster in the sky – and why the fuck not?  Their traditional religious garb is to wear a colander as head gear. A young pastafari was recently arrested in the good ol’ US of A (land of freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion) for refusing to remove his colander for a policeman (hehe – “freedoms”).

Therefore the omnipotence of the pastafarian refers to the infinite ways that pasta can be filled, but also has subversive atheistic undertones that you may, only now, be aware of – careful what you read kids, you might just find yourselves enlightened, maybe even accept their main tenet that the only dogma they accept is the non-acceptance of dogma, perhaps even follow aspects of their way of life such as not taking themselves too seriously and liking beer, and finally accept that the pastafarian god has bigger balls than your god (I think they mean meatballs)…all hail his noodly appendages!

I am not a pastafarian, I am an atheist, however I do love the eating their god…nom nom.

Oh – I was going to call this article “The True Omnipotence of the Pastafarian”, but I figured it wouldn’t work as well in google…pretty shallow, huh…?  ;o)