Now you know those "beetroot" pastas you get from supermarket are possibly just using artificial food colouring! The colour of these home-made beetroot pastas look totally different, in term of colour, from those supermarket one! These pastas have a lovely red colour with bits of real beetroot in it. It has an earthy and sweet scent too!

For these pasta, I mixed 120g strong bread flour with one egg and 2 generous tablespoonful of minced fresh beetroot. (add a tablespoon of oil in the mincing process). You will need more flour to achieve a smooth and non-sticky dough in the kneading stage. It is all about experiment. I air-dried them over night to get this authentic dry pasta look! VERY brittle, so handle with extra care!

I can not wait to cook them and see how they will look hydrated and mingling with some lovely sauce..(not sure what sauce yet!)

UPDATE:
All gone now...the pastas look lovely once cooked. Such pretty rose-red colour. I thought the pasta should be served in very simple fragranced oil. So I gently fried some garlic chives in olive oil, and then add some carrot and prawns. Boil the pasta in boiling water for max 2 minutes then mix them to the sauce...

YUM and this is the colours of the coming Summer time...!

I was thinking this morning, it must be very pretty if I can use beetroot to make some coloured pasta! The result is rather exciting. Indeed, I made some beautiful red pasta..(it will be revealed tomorrow!)

So I used the left-over beetroot pasta dough to make these "papadum". They are equally pretty. Such an exciting colour on the plate..

I was wondering what can these beetroot "papadum" go with....maybe goat's cheese and chilli and tomatoes condiment?! YUMMMM...Together they tasted really nice...the slight earthiness of the beetroot works well with the goat's cheese. The saltiness and creaminess of the cheese complement perfectly with the sweetness and spiciness of the chilli and tomatoes condiment! 

How boring can it be when a plate of food lack of colours!

How interesting!! Exactly the same ingredient as the parsley pasta, but I manage to make a totally different kind of food with Asian flavours! And I found a different use of the left-over pasta dough! Simply divide the pasta dough into small balls and roll them out as a round "papadum" dish. Gently fry them until crisp and lightly coloured in a lightly oiled pan 

Serves with the minced lamb sauce and chilli and tomato condiment. YUM!

For the home-made chilli and tomato condiment: I used the followings: (make 1 jar)

1. 2 Large tomatoes (roughly chopped with skin and seeds)
2. 4 Large red chillies (roughly chopped with seeds)
3. Juice of 1 lime
4. 1/2 cup jam sugar (or just normal sugar)
5. A handful of finely chopped coriander leaves
6. A handful of roughly chopped coriander stalks

In a pan, cook the chopped tomatoes, chillies, lime juice and coriander stalks until soften and mashy. Add the sugar and cook until the sauce thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped coriander leaves and pour the mixture to a sterile jam jar and close the lid immediately and store it away until later. Done! 

This week's colour is GREEN!  Really! There are so many natural ways to colour your food. I wanted to make some really green pasta, my initial straight forward green ingredient for the pasta was spinach. However, I wanted to use a plant that not only provide the colour but also add flavour to the pasta. 

I tried using coriander, but the result was not as expected. Lovely flavour, but it was not as refine and the coriander seemed to be a bit too "juicy" for the pasta making! So for my second attempt, I used parsley as the green ingredient.
It worked well, but not as fragrant as the coriander.

For the pasta, I mix 1 egg and 2 generous tablespoonful of the finely minced parsley (stalks and leaves) with 110g plain flour. Combine all ingredients well with a fork. When the dough come together (a bit sticky initially), knead with your hands and add more flour (one handful at a time) until the dough is smooth and elastic. 

Divide the dough into many smaller balls (if using rolling pin) or if you have a pasta machine (lucky you!) then you can just rolled them through the machine as you would normally do! Once done, cut the thin pasta sheet into smaller strands, and set aside to let it dry for a little while. 

I thought  the parsley in the pasta should complement well with minced lamb, so I made some simple minced lamb sauce to go with the pasta. Once you have prepared the sauce, cook the pasta in boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes and drain. Add the pasta to the lamb sauce and coat the pasta throughly.

Serves hot with finely chopped red chilli as garnish. Beautiful!