Roasted Wheat Pasta

Fresh home made pasta ready too cook. So simple and easy. It takes about as long to roll out the dough and cut the noodles as it takes to bring the cooking water to a boil.

This has become my staple pasta and I make it frequently. I used to make my pasta from all purpose unbleached white flour, but when I began making ale from roasted white wheat I began experimenting with using some of it to make flour and wheat meal. While I love the nutty flavor that the roasted wheat flour adds to the pasta, when using only the roasted wheat flour I found that the resulting dough was too firm and brittle, so I began cutting it with the all purpose flour. I've found that mixing the roasted wheat flour and the all purpose flour 1:1 is just right. The all purpose flour adds some elasticity to the dough, but not so much that the dough contracts very much when rolled out (a problem I do have when using only all purpose flour). At 1:1, the flavor of the roasted wheat still comes through without being too strong.

Pasta made from this mix still has enough roasted wheat flavor that it comes through all but the strongest flavored sauces, and it's also delightful served with an Alfredo sauce, pesto, or served ala Carbonara. It's also very good served simply with good quality butter, some herbs and Parmesan cheese.

Fresh pasta is very easy to make and I don't use store bought pasta any more. Using a rolling pin and pizza cutter or knife, it takes me about as long to roll out the dough and cut the noodles as it takes for the water to come to a boil, and only a couple of minutes to cook. If you use a pasta machine to roll the dough and cut the noodles it would take even less time.

Roasted whole wheat. The pale grains in the center of the picture are unroasted white wheat.

To make the roasted wheat, place a portion of white wheat in a shallow roasting pan or dish (no more than 1 1/2" deep), and bake in the oven at 350° F for 45-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. When the wheat reaches the desired color, remove from the oven and allow to cool before placing in it's storage container.

 

Grinding the wheat, before and after. This little grinder will process about 1/2 cup of wheat at a time into a coarse flour.

To grind the wheat into flour I use a small coffee grinder. If you have one, you could use a small kitchen flour mill, but I don't, so it's the coffee grinder for me. Small coffee grinders can be bought for under $20 and are handy for grinding all sorts of things (not just coffee beans). If you use a small coffee grinder you'll wind up with a coarse flour. I actually prefer this. If you prefer a finer flour, you'll need to purchase a small kitchen flour mill. I don't recommend using a food processor or a blender as you'll wind up with more of a wheat meal than flour.

One note on grinding grains, don't grind more than you will use in a month (I only make a cup of flour at a time). Because you're grinding whole grains, you'll have the germ along with the bran and starch of the grain. The germ has oils which will go rancid (become oxidized) eventually. The whole roasted grain will keep for much longer.

My preference for roasting wheat is white wheat. White wheat was bred from red wheat, which has more tannins in its bran, making it somewhat bitter to many people when ground into whole wheat flour. When buying your wheat for roasting, I prefer hard wheat as it has more gluten than soft wheat. But sometimes people do prefer soft wheat. Both are readily available from many grocery stores as well as from mills like Bob's Red Mill, located in Milwaukie, Oregon.

This recipe makes one serving, increase as necessary for more than one person. If you are unable to roast and grind wheat you could substitute whole wheat flour for roasted wheat flour.

Ingredients
1 large egg
1/2 - 3/4 C roasted wheat flour mix*
Pinch of salt
All purpose unbleached white flour for dusting the cutting board

Method
⦁ In a small bowl, beat the egg and salt together with a fork.
⦁ Add half of the flour mix and stir with the fork until combined, then stir in the rest of the flour mix.
⦁ Turn out the dough onto a well floured cutting board and knead until the dough is no longer sticky and is firm but still somewhat pliable.
⦁ Cover and allow the dough to rest for 10-20 minutes.
⦁ Divide the dough in half, and, using a rolling pin, roll it out as thin as possible (about 1/16" in thickness). If you're using a pasta machine, flatten the dough with your hand and run it through the rollers, starting with the thickest setting and progressing down to the thinnest setting.

I like to use this pasta cutter rolling pin to make layout lines in the dough. The rolling pin is supposed to actually cut the noodles from the dough, and it would if the cutters weren't wood (the pin and the cutters are all milled out of a single piece of Beech wood), so I still cut the noodles with the pizza cutter, but I really like the rolling pin for making the layout lines. Makes my noodles more uniform.

⦁ Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut the dough into noodles and move to a dry container. If you're using a pasta machine run the dough through the fettuccini cutter.
⦁ Roll out and cut the other half of the dough.
⦁ Heat a pan of water along with a bit of oil, to boiling and add the pasta, using a chopstick or fork to separate the noodles.
⦁ Once the noodles have risen to the surface and the water has returned to a boil, reduce heat to medium high and cook for 2 minutes, or until it has reached the desired tenderness.
⦁ Remove from water and drain.
⦁ Serve immediately with your favorite sauce.

*Roasted Wheat Flour mix - roasted wheat flour and all purpose unbleached white flour mixed 1:1

Roasted wheat pasta with Chicken Merlot. It's what's for dinner.

All content, including pictures, © Joanne Rigutto, unless otherwise noted.