I remember a few times when my mom and I would watch a cooking show on TV and mom would quickly grab a notebook to jot down a recipe, before the days when the internet made it easy to look up the show's website and find the episode and/or recipe. Oh, those days.
Actually, I ended up doing that on Sunday because America's Test Kitchen makes it extremely difficult to access any of their recipes unless you pay $30 a year. That Christopher Kimball, he's a sly old miser. A few 21st century luxuries made this process easier for us, however. I have the show scheduled to record every Saturday morning on my DVR, so we could rewind this particular episode as many times as needed to write down their recipe for Cacio e Pepe. Also, we didn't actually write it down - Joel typed it up on his iPad and so we could prop it up nicely on the counter as we worked. (That was how I always envisioned life with an iPad - a constant kitchen counter companion.)
This recipe inspired the first-ever use of my Imperia Pasta Machine, which I've kept for maybe 5 years in the cupboard. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos of people making the dough and using their Imperia machines, which inspired some confidence in me. I went in the kitchen, made my little well of flour and put the eggs in the middle. Then, like molten lava, some of the egg white began to creep over the top of the well, and my efforts to keep it all enclosed only made more channels for the eggs to escape, resulting in a big gooey mess. I swore and carried on in frustration, then dumped the gloop in the sink. I went outside and watered my garden in a rage.
Someone kindly cleaned up after my catastrophic flour-egg sink mess, which gave me a little boost. I gave it another go. Dough success!
The machine was fairly simple to use (once I read the instructions), too. It was actually quite fun.
The rest of the dish was a breeze, mostly because I wasn't the one grating all the Romano. The pasta turned out great, the sauce was peppery and creamy and simple, and I dismissed my Julia Child-inspired rule (as I usually do) and went back for seconds.
Actually, I ended up doing that on Sunday because America's Test Kitchen makes it extremely difficult to access any of their recipes unless you pay $30 a year. That Christopher Kimball, he's a sly old miser. A few 21st century luxuries made this process easier for us, however. I have the show scheduled to record every Saturday morning on my DVR, so we could rewind this particular episode as many times as needed to write down their recipe for Cacio e Pepe. Also, we didn't actually write it down - Joel typed it up on his iPad and so we could prop it up nicely on the counter as we worked. (That was how I always envisioned life with an iPad - a constant kitchen counter companion.)
This recipe inspired the first-ever use of my Imperia Pasta Machine, which I've kept for maybe 5 years in the cupboard. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos of people making the dough and using their Imperia machines, which inspired some confidence in me. I went in the kitchen, made my little well of flour and put the eggs in the middle. Then, like molten lava, some of the egg white began to creep over the top of the well, and my efforts to keep it all enclosed only made more channels for the eggs to escape, resulting in a big gooey mess. I swore and carried on in frustration, then dumped the gloop in the sink. I went outside and watered my garden in a rage.
Someone kindly cleaned up after my catastrophic flour-egg sink mess, which gave me a little boost. I gave it another go. Dough success!
The machine was fairly simple to use (once I read the instructions), too. It was actually quite fun.
The rest of the dish was a breeze, mostly because I wasn't the one grating all the Romano. The pasta turned out great, the sauce was peppery and creamy and simple, and I dismissed my Julia Child-inspired rule (as I usually do) and went back for seconds.
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