Chickpea flour & beet pasta

In a food processor, mix together chickpea flour, tapioca flour, salt, and psyllium husk until combined. Sprinkle some extra tapioca flour on a smooth surface ( I used a marble pastry board) and arrange the flour mixture with a well in the middle for the egg mixture.

Here is the tricky part about making a pasta in general (and especially a gluten-free pasta) you are going to have to do a bit of tinkering- be patient! Whisk together egg, egg yolks, 1 tbsp warm water, and 1 tbsp olive oil. Pour this wet mixture into the well you created in your flour. Start creating your dough by combining the wet and the dry together with your hands. Give it time and it will eventually become a ball of dough-I promise. As you go, you can add more chickpea flour if dough is too wet and sticky, or add more olive oil or warm water if the dough is too try. If dough seems way too dry or crumbly, add a tiny bit more tapioca flour as this gluten free flour is a perfect mimic of gluten, it creates the stretchy quality.  Add 1 tbsp of beet juice after you have a firm but malleable ball of dough. Add a little more olive oil as you go if it’s too dry, and add more chickpea flour if dough is too wet.

(FYI: Beets will make a mess REAL quick…)

(After covering and letting it settle for 30 minutes, cut the dough into four smaller pieces to work with)

There a few ways you can go about this. You can use a pasta maker if you have one, or you could cut thick noodles (think pappardelle) by hand. After a few attempts cutting pasta by hand, I realized my juicer actually has a pasta making attachment so I used that. I also made ravioli by rolling out the dough as thinly as possible (with plenty of tapioca flour to prevent sticking) and then hand cutting super thin squares, filing them and then sealing them up around the edges with a fork.

 

Bring a deep pan of salted water to a rapid boil (make sure it’s got enough salt-taste it, it should be obviously salty but not off-puttingly salty of course). You might want to cook the pasta in intervals because you want to make sure the noodles are spread out enough. Let the pasta boil for 2/12 minutes at a rapid boil, immediately rinse in cold water and drizzle with olive oil in a bowl; set aside.

Mix together equal parts nutritional yeast and raw cashews for a grated vegan parmesan. Toss your pasta with a healthy dousing of olive oil, a heap of freshly ground black pepper, some pink himalayan salt and as much vegan parmesan as you can handle. Top with parsley if you choose.