Bi Colored Pasta

Does bi colore mean two colors in English? I don't know much Italian, any help is really very appreciated. Ok, back to this pasta, about the how-tos I'll explain in the bottom of my post. The yellow part is just a regular pasta while the red is beetroot's. I don't recommend using tomato as its color will wash out quite a bit after cooked. Taste-wise (dough itself), the beetroot taste isn't that noticeable, I'm very glad, not because I hate beetroot; if there's any prominant taste in pasta somehow I feel being restricted by only going for certain filling or sauce, now it leaves me no boundary.

Few years ago I saw Martha Steward shaped a candy out of a piece of pasta sheet, wouldn't it be more theme-relevant if going for a sweet filling as well? So I combined her idea with this recipe - Cialzons alla frutta (prune- and fig- filled ravioli with cinnamon-scented butter) from the book In Nonna's Kitchen. This pasta is common in Friuli, north eastern part of Italy. The book said while the choice of filling is vary from family to family, the one thing that remains constant is the filling's sweet flavor. The taste comes from the time when spice merchants called Cramars brought spices from Venice across the Carnia mountains as they made their way to Austria and Germany. The people of the area were much too poor to afford expensive spices, but they could exchange their panoply of homemade cheeses and prosciutti for some of those spices, and then invent pastas as enticing as these (extracted from In Nonna's Kitchen).` Isn't it beautiful?

So in the photo, upper left, is my version of cialzon alla frutta, instead of topped with smoked cheese as suggested, I used toasted nut and chocolate. Please note this sweet pasta is definitely a first course. It still takes me a while to get use to this idea. So at the same time, I finished up the rest of pasta dough by making two-cheese ravioli, which is on the upper right.

After I seen Martha using a manufacturer's colored pasta sheet (which consisted of three colors... as I recalled), I figured out my way to make it in a home kitchen. So far it has been tested three times, if you have tried it, or have a better idea, kindly let me know, thank you!

You will need:

• one regular pasta dough (I used the 1st recipe)
• and one more pasta dough, but replace the water with beetroot juice. To make the juice, I (coarsely) puree two small beetroots with 2 (or more) cups of water, pass the juice through a sieve.

Directions:

• For Method A, it's a bit time consuming, but the outcome is better, best for small size stuff-pasta. Roll small logs of dough, stick them together by egg yolk. Here you get one basic portion.
• For Method B, it works faster, the outcome is nice but not as good as A's, best for lasagna sheet. After you finish making the dough, shape it a big tall square block, slice them. Glue the slices (alternate color) with egg yolk, then slice the width-wise, here you get one basic portion. Keep slicing you get more.
• Either method A or B, you have to flatten the dough with roller pin prior working with the pasta machine.
• Pass the dough through the machine until you get your desired thickness. For stuff-pasta, I prefer the thinnest or second-last. Trim off the both ends before use.

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