Category: Grains & Legumes

Aquafaba (vegan) Black Pepper Pasta

We broadened our pasta horizons this week. I’ve been reading about aquafaba for a while, and hoping to put it to good use. This weekend Sarah made a batch of channa masala and she started with dried chickpeas. I asked to to reserve the liquid from the cooking process this past weekend in our Instant Pot.

First, I strained the liquid into a medium saucepan. I didn’t want any discernible floaty bits.

Second, I simmered it in a medium saucepan about 8 minutes over medium heat, to reduce it by half. The result from Sarah’s bean batch and the strained and simmered reduction was just over 240 g (a little more than a cup) of aqufaba. I put that into the fridge for a couple days until ready to experiment with it.

Last night, I set to work following this recipe for the ingredients and using our experiences with homemade egg pasta as a guide for method and resulting dough texture.

It worked! I liked the black pepper flavor embedded in the pasta. The raw dough didn’t taste the same as egg noodles we’ve made in the past, but rather more like the usual dried pasta — just in soft form. I would definitely make these again when there is another batch of aquafaba to be used up. Like all fresh pasta varieties, these cook fast and are less sturdy than store-bought dried pasta — so I don’t expect they would hold up to the vigorous mixing required for a dish like cacio e pepe (for example). But I bet they would work great in all other typical pasta applications.

Aquafaba (vegan) Black Pepper Pasta

Adapted from Egg-Free, Vegan Homemade Black Pepper Pasta for use with our equipment. The original method calls for a food processor with a spinning blade to form a ball. That method worked great for us making dumpling dough back when we had such a machine. For this recipe, we used a stand mixer with a paddle, dough kneading hook, and pasta rolling and cutting attachments.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups (250 g) all purpose flour -OR- 00 flour
  • 1/2 cup (120 g) reduced aquafaba
  • 1 tsp (3 g) sea salt
  • 1 tbsp (15 g) extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp (2 g) freshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Mix together the dry ingredients (Tipo 00 is what we used) with the paddle on a stand mixer.

  2. Dump in the wet ingredients and continue mixing a bit more until well combined.

  3. Switch to the dough hook and knead until the dough starts to climb the walls of the mixing bowl and fall back in on itself. Interrupt the kneading and help it if necessary. All of this took no more than a few minutes of kneading time. We did not have to adjust the flour or liquid at all to get the text we needed it. Squish the dough together into a ball shape.

  4. Let the dough rest in a ball, covered tightly, for 30 minutes. We put a silicone lid over the mixing bowl and let it rest inside that (rather than use plastic wrap).

  5. Cut the dough ball into three or four pieces. One at a time, flatten them and run them through the pasta roller, doing the usual lather/rinse/repeat of folding the ends in and re-rolling at the widest setting at least three times before rolling progressively thinner. Our tagliatelle came out great on the #5 setting.

  6. Cut the flat sheets into noodles, dust them with flour and let them rest in nests while you prepare to boil them. They will finish quickly.

Sautéed Green Beans

My mom made this years ago from a magazine recipe – Good Housekeeping or Southern Living, probably. I decided I wanted to make it for Thanksgiving this year, but she didn’t have the recipe anymore. I remembered the ingredients and the cooking method, so I just started making up the proportions. I think it turned out rather well.

1 lb fresh green beans
1 tsp salt
1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
1 large shallot, sliced thin
2-3 T butter
1/2 tsp lemon pepper

1. Trim the ends off of the beans and give them a good rinse. Add the beans and salt to a large stock pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer briefly – 2 minutes for very crisp beans, 5 for well-cooked. Drain beans and set aside.

2. Bring a large skillet to medium high heat. Melt butter in pan and add bell pepper and shallots. Cook until pepper softens and shallot is transparent, then add beans and the rest of the butter. Turn heat down to medium low and stir beans frequently, until heated through. Add lemon pepper and serve.

Perfect Chili

This is originally from here, but I made a few changes. I was tempted to add more spicy elements, but was glad I didn’t – the chili powder, chipotle pepper and pepper flakes really combine to create a nice, cumulative burn.

2 T olive or vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large chipotle pepper, finely chopped
1 lb ground beef
1 T chili powder
1 T ground cumin
1/2 t smoked paprika
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 t salt
2 t cocoa powder
1 large pinch red pepper flakes
1 T molasses
1 c chicken broth
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 cans kidney beans
1 c amber beer
1 c tomato sauce
1 t Worcestershire sauce

In a large Dutch oven, heat oil to medium and sauté the onion, garlic, pepper and chipotle until tender. Add the ground beef and cook until mostly done, then drain fat. Combine chili powder, cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt, cocoa and red pepper flakes and stir into meat until just fragrant. Add molasses, broth and tomatoes and break up tomatoes with spoon, then add beans. Allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes, the stir in beer, tomato sauce and Worcestershire. Simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally for at least 45 minutes or until thickened.