Exquisite Fresh Pasta with Pressed Edible Flowers
I’ve been wanting to try to make this for such a long time and so thank goodness for the rain that came today which meant I didn’t want to spend so much time in the garden and for the wonderful Zoe from Delicately Edible who sent me some of her home grown edible flowers this week. The perfect combination to give me the push I needed to try this little experiment!
Fresh pasta with pressed fresh flowers, looks absolutely stunning, is relatively easy to make if you already know how to make pasta and adds an interesting texture and bite to normal pasta. We served ours with a fresh basil pesto which was delicious but in hindsight did slightly hide the pressed flowers within the pasta, next time I will serve it with a salmon, cream and dill sauce, perhaps pressing some dill within the pasta. And really the possibilities when it comes to ingredients to press are endless on this one!
Fancy having a go? Here is my guide to making fresh pasta with edible flowers.
Start by making your pasta base, I tend to follow the simple measurements of 100g of 00 flour per egg and use my Kitchen Aid to do the hard work for me. You can use this simple recipe if you haven’t made pasta before. Chill in the fridge as normal.
Roll out the pasta using a pasta machine to the thinnest setting. Hang the pasta you aren’t using on a pasta rack to ensure it doesn’t get stuck together. Cut a strip of pasta the length that you feel most comfortable working with, lay it out on the work surface with a sprinkling of flour underneath it.
Then taking edible flowers of your choice, I am working with violas and pansies here, carefully lay each one out keeping a fair distance between them. I preferred to use just the petals in the end as I found when I use the whole flower that the stem broke through the pasta and didn’t look quite as nice (although still pretty amazing!).
Once you are happy with the positioning of your flowers, lay a similar size and length piece of pasta over the top of the flowers.
Turn the pasta making machine to a couple of notches below the thinnest setting and carefully feed the double layer of pasta through the machine. From there work the pasta back down to the thinnest setting.
And there you have it, assuming it has worked, your pasta is ready to be cut into the shape you prefer and cooked for a few minutes in rolling boiling water with a pinch of salt and a glug of good quality olive oil.
It really is one of the simplest things to make but looks so pretty and would wow any guest at a dinner party. If you need some guidance on which flowers are good for eating, then you can check my guide out here.
