Beet tagliatelle with gorgonzola sauce and pine nuts

Making pasta at home, although it seems complicated, is very easy. You only need flour and egg, and follow the steps of kneading, stretching and cutting. A few simple steps that bring us radically different results in texture and flavor from the pasta we usually buy.

Today Virginia, author of Sweet&Sour , presents us with the recipe with a different touch of color and flavor. irresistible! A whole temptation that you cannot miss

I've been in total pasta mode lately. Testing mixtures and types of pasta. This recipe that I bring you today is delicious, due to the slightly sweet touch that the beetroot leaves in the pasta and the contrast with the cheerful touch of the gorgonzola cheese. For me 10.

In addition, to lower the fat content of the sauce in this recipe, because the cheese already provides it, we did not want to add cream and we have replaced it with evaporated milk, which makes the sauce lighter, less caloric and less heavy. We must take care of health and line.

The beetroot paste is simple and as you can see it gives a beautiful color to the dish. It is true that part of the intense color of the beetroot is lost with cooking, but even so it is a most colorful dish.

You can add beetroot roasted or cooked, and the same as the one you find packaged in supermarkets or homemade.

I won't get tired of saying it, but preparing fresh pasta is so simple that those who dare to prepare it will repeat it and even get hooked, as happens in a certain way with homemade bread. A machine from a traditional brand like Imperia , is synonymous with successful results, and at an absolutely reasonable price. In addition, the taste of fresh homemade pasta has nothing to do with purchased pasta, and it has the advantage that you can prepare pasta of all kinds and to your liking.

The beetroot paste recipe varies slightly in terms of proportions from the traditional one, mainly because to make the color intense we add a good amount of pureed beetroot, and what we do is remove a couple of eggs to compensate and maintain the proportion of solids and liquids. In any case, the system is the same as the one you can find in the tutorial on " How to prepare fresh pasta at home ". Let's go with the recipe.

INGREDIENTS: (For 4 servings)

For the beetroot paste:

• 300 g flour "00" or a mixture of 210 g flour and 70 g semolina
• 150 gr. beetroot puree*
• 1 "M" egg
• 1 pinch of salt
• Plenty of water and salt for cooking the pasta

*All flours do not absorb the same amount of water, so start by adding 100 gr. of beetroot puree, until the desired texture is obtained. Remember that we only add one egg and therefore the pasta should not be too soft, but rather dry.

For the gorgonzola and pine nut sauce:

• 120g Gorgonzola cheese
• 200 ml of evaporated milk
• 50g of pine nuts
• Edible thoughts to decorate.

PREPARATION

We begin by preparing our fresh beetroot paste: To do this, we grind the beetroot until it becomes a puree. Mix with the egg and reserve.

If we follow the traditional method, we mix and sift the flour and salt (if we use it), placing it directly on the work table or in a large bowl.

We make a hole in the center and place the mixed egg and beetroot inside. With the help of a fork, we gradually incorporate flour from the sides to the center. When a semi-soft dough begins to form, we will begin to knead it with more force until we obtain an elastic and homogeneous mass. Wrap in film, and put in the fridge for 1 hour.

Keep in mind that the dough should be a rather hard dough, which does not stick to the hands, otherwise if we obtained a dough that was too wet or soft it would be very difficult to laminate later. Therefore, if we see that we need more beetroot because it is too hard, or more flour because it is too soft, we will add it while we knead and mix.

If we use our Kitchen Aid , we put all the ingredients in the mixer bowl and mix slowly at speed 1 with the paddle attachment until obtaining a homogeneous mass.

Change to the dough hook and continue kneading at speed 2 for about 5-8 minutes, until the dough is elastic and homogeneous. We shape it into a ball, wrap it in film and put it in the fridge for 1 hour. We already have our dough ready to laminate and cut. Easier impossible.

Let's go now with the laminate and cut the pasta . Remove from the refrigerator and proceed to divide our ball into 4 parts. We keep three of the parts in film and return to the fridge so they don't dry out.

To laminate with the pasta machine : Flatten the remaining portion with your hands and pass it through the laminating roller of the pasta machine , at its largest opening. We fold it to get a rectangular shape and pass it back through the same opening. We repeat this operation in that same opening 3 or 4 times, until our dough plate obtains the width of the roller.

We reduce the opening of the roller by one number, flour our dough sheet and pass it through the roller. We repeat this operation, reducing the thickness of the roller with each pass, until the end. We will obtain a very long sheet with a thickness of 1 to 1.5 mm.

During rolling, we may need to lightly flour the pasta sheet so it doesn't stick to us.

Once our pasta sheet is ready, we let it dry hanging on the clean back of a chair, on a hanger or in the utensils that exist specifically for this purpose. We continue with the rest of the dough portions.

To laminate the pasta without a machine, we must use a roller . If possible heavy and leave a thickness of about 1 or 2 mm. We take one of the 4 parts into which we have divided the ball of dough and crush it slightly with our hands. Lightly flour the surface where we are going to work and begin to stretch it, giving it 90º turns, until obtaining sheets of the desired thickness.

Let's go now with the cut : The pasta machines, in addition to the base with the laminating rollers, come with a couple of heads with different types of cut, which are attached to the base. In this way, we cut each strip of those obtained in turn into strips of about 20 cm and pass it through the chosen cutting roller. If necessary, lightly flour each sheet of pasta so that it does not stick to us.

We let the already cut pasta dry again hanging as we had done with the strips, while we proceed to cut the rest.

If we are going to do the manual cutting, we cut each strip into strips of about 20 cm and fold them three or four times on themselves, lightly flouring the sheet in each fold so that it does not stick. With a sharp knife we ​​cut 2 cm strips to get our Tagliatelle.

To cut the pasta, we can also use the roller to cut pasta , with which you can easily make the cut evenly.

While the pasta dries, we prepare the gorgonzola and pine nut sauce : Place the evaporated milk and the cheese into small pieces in a saucepan . Put over medium heat and let the cheese melt with the evaporated milk, keeping an eye on the pan and stirring from time to time.

Meanwhile, we crush half of the pine nuts in the mortar. We toast the rest in a frying pan without oil and reserve.

When the cheese has dissolved, add the pine nuts and cook for a couple of minutes over medium low heat. Remove and reserve in the heat. Of this sauce, half will go to a frying pan and the rest to a sauce boat.

If the sauce is too thick, you can thin it out with a little evaporated milk.

Ready our pasta and our sauce, we proceed to cook the pasta in abundant boiling water with salt, for a couple of minutes from the first boil once the pasta is introduced. Once ready, we take out and strain immediately.

While the pasta is cooking, we put a frying pan on the heat and add half of the sauce. When the pasta is cooked and strained, pour over the sauce and leave it for 2 or 3 minutes, turning a few times so that the pasta soaks well.

We serve immediately on hot plates, with a spoonful of sauce on top and some pine nuts. We decorate with edible thoughts if you want to give a more chic touch.

A simple and absolutely delicious dish, homemade from start to finish.

To enjoy.

Virginia