Green Pea Pasta

You might have been wondering what else you could use to replace wheat flour and semolina when graving some Pasta fresca...
So have I.

And I found that flour from pulses like green peas works just fine.
If you happen to have a powerful blender, the sky is your limit ;)
...And making your own flour from pulses like dried green peas, chickpeas, lentils, beans, etc. has one big advantage when preparing pasta dough with it:
You're able to get a coarser grade of flour which is closer to semolina and preferable for Pasta.

I used store-bought green pea flour though and this also worked fine, so lets get started!

• 2 cups green pea flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 dash olive oil
• 50 ml water
• 1/2 ts salt
• nutmeg

mix the pea and rice flour well before adding a dash of olive oil, some grated nutmeg, 1/2 tablespoon salt, 2 eggs and 50 ml water. Combine and mix with your hands. When you start working the dough you will notice that it's a lot stickier than ordinary pasta dough. You might have to add some more rice flour to get a smoother dough that is easier to work and less sticky.

When your dough is smooth & ready, form a ball and put it in the refrigerator for at least half an hour (longer is better).

If you're tempted to taste the raw dough you will notice that it has a very strong flavour that you might be familiar with from other raw pulses like chickpeas. It will be gone wih the pasta being cooked.

Once out of the refrigerator, cut the dough in slices about 1/2 inch thick. Make sure you put flour (rice) on each side before rolling the dough flat.

Of course a Pasta machine helps... a lot! ;)

I never go down to step 1 on the machine but with this pasta i actually choose 3 to be the last step.
In between the steps (i went from 7 straight to 3) i had to flour the dough again, thats how sticky it is when working with pea flour.

Making the Pasta actually means cutting it to your favourite size/type.
Flouring the cut pasta in a strainer in between cutting the sheets helps to prevent the cut edges stick to one another when stored before cooking.

To cook your Pasta just do the usual thing:
Bring 1 1/2 l salted water to the boil and add the pasta. The water should stop boiling by that time and stay right below that point for the pasta to cook gently until done.

Prepare your green Pasta fresca the way you would do with any other kind of pasta.

I love to fry Onion and Garlic in olive Oil, pour some wine before adding my pasta and then stir in 1 tbls mustard along with 2 tbls creamcheese. Finish it off with some limejuice, fresh rocket and cut tomatoes, and voila: