By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
The Westwood and Dover Council’s on Aging (COA) joined together once again this month at Powisset Farm to join Chef Thi in learning how to create spring pasta from Italy. Within this class, COA members made delicious Lemony Asparagus Pasta as well as a Spring Gnocchi Primavera.
In true Italian style, attendees were able to make each type of pasta from scratch. Together as a group, COA members created two dough balls using all purpose flour, 5-6 eggs, a pinch of salt, and a food processor. This would be used for the Lemony Asparagus Pasta dish. While those sat and rested, it was time to cut up the veggies, zest and juice the lemons, and start the Primavera sauce.
This sauce consisted of olive oil, garlic, cherry tomatoes, white wine, sugar snap peas, ramps, peas, heavy cream, salt and pepper, parmesan cheese, and parsley. To start off, attendees added the olive oil, garlic, and whole cherry tomatoes into a pan to sauté until the tomatoes burst and caramelized. They then added some white wine to deglaze the pan and reduce it slightly. Once this was done, they used an immersion blender to puree the mixture until it was smooth, then set it aside.
Next on the agenda was to make the potato gnocchi dough using potatoes, salted butter, two egg yolks, two whole eggs, all purpose flour, and salt to taste. Attendees would use one of Chef Thi’s favorite kitchen tools, a ricer, to process the potatoes and butter, then add the yolk and eggs into the bowl. From there, they would incorporate the flour slowly while mixing until a stiff ball was formed. The ball would be cut into small pieces that were then turned into ropes. COA members cut 1-inch pieces from the ropes and rolled them on the backside of a fork to create ridges.
Director of the Westwood COA, Lina Arena-DeRosa, shared her own tip on creating ridges by simply pressing the fork into each side of the gnocchi. Using both methods, two sheets of gnocchis were formed and flour was spread on top to prevent sticking.
After this, it was time to start sautéing the vegetables that were going into the Primavera sauce. Chef Thi suggested that this is the perfect dish to throw any leftover vegetables that are laying around the house into the sauce. For this class, they used sugar snap peas, frozen peas, fresh corn, mushrooms, onions, leeks, and spinach. Once all these veggies were slightly charred, they added the tomato sauce, heavy cream, salt and pepper.
This was left to simmer as they went on to cook the lemony asparagus sauce using lemon juice, olive oil, dijon mustard, shallots, garlic, red pepper flakes, asparagus, salted butter, walnuts, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, parsley, and basil. The garlic, shallots and olive oil were put in the pan first, cooking until golden brown, then they added the red pepper flakes, asparagus and lemon zest.
While that was sautéing, COA members started cutting their two dough balls from the beginning of class into long strips of pasta. They cooked the gnocchis first, putting them into the sauce they created once they had finished cooking. Then it was time for the pasta rags to cook, which were then transferred into the lemony asparagus sauce. Each pasta took all of two to three minutes to fully cook through.
To make sure each sauce thickened, Chef Thi had them add a ladle (or more) of pasta water to each sauce as well as some parmesan cheese. To garnish each dish, some parsley and/or basil was added as well as a dash of more parmesan cheese.
With this, it was finally time to start eating their delectable creations! All were in awe of Chef Thi’s talent and how well each dish they made truly turned out.
Director of the Dover COA, Janet Claypoole, stated just how much every member involved truly enjoys these cooking classes. “We are all just so supportive of one another,” Claypoole mentioned, “and it is great to see just how much Chef Thi gets us all involved in the process of creating these dishes.”
At the end of the class, everyone received a copy of these recipes and many of them were eager to try them at home. It can be said with ease that both COA’s are eager to do more of these types of classes in the future!
