Ciao! We’ve got a short and sweet one this week. We’ve finally turned our family-favourite spinach fettuccine gluten-free!
Yes, expect the spinach to make this even harder to pull together and manage than simply gluten-free dough… But, with a little persistence and self-belief, you’ve got this.
Form the usual well, pull it together into the usual shaggy mass, but only knead for a couple of minutes. As always, a little dusting of flour if too wet, and run your hands quickly under the tap if too dry. You don’t want it sticking to the machine, but you also need this dough to have a little moisture to it.
If you overwork a dry dough trying to make it hold together (I may have done this, more than once), the xanthan gum will soon turn the whole thing into an uncooperative stoney mound of rubble.
When it does, inevitably, shred itself, just patiently patch it back together and roll again. Try for no more than two layers at a time, and eventually you’ll have a sheet. Remember that, unlike glutinous dough, it won’t stretch well. It is squished together under pressure but will break if over-stressed, which could easily by my one-line biography.
Sheet it up and coat with a little extra flour, as the spinach tends to leave the dough on the wet side, and this will help to prevent them sticking in the cutter.
Finally, slice them into fettuccine, and toss loosely with more flour. This pasta can be cooked straight away, or stored frozen on baking paper-lined oven trays.
Buon appetito!
– Al, Al, and El.
Ingredients
- 300 g gluten-free flour
- 3 eggs + 1 egg yolk
- 120 g blanched spinach, finely chopped (or blended)
- 3 tsp xanthan gum
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Form a well of the dry ingredients, add the eggs and spinach to the centre, and bring together with a fork or your hand.
- Knead for 1-2 minutes, shaping into a tight ball. If the dough is too wet and sticking to your hands, add flour half a tablespoon at a time.
- Cut into 4 pieces, and flatten each down as much as possible with your hands and/or a rolling pin. Begin feeding the dough through the machine starting at the thickest setting and working incrementally through to your desired thickness. This will be tricky, and the dough will tear quite a bit at first, but when a hole appears, just fold the dough over itself to cover, and then pass it back through on the same setting. You may need multiple passes on the thicker settings before progressing to thinner.
- Cut the pasta sheets into lengths of 20-25cm, and feed through a fettuccine cutter. Toss the pasta lightly in flour and then transfer to a baking paper lined tray.
- Bring a pot of lightly salted water to the boil and drop the fettuccine in, cooking until al dente or until there is no longer any white visible in the centre of the pasta when cut into (2-3 minutes). Retain a cup of pasta water, and drain.
- Although brittle as they're being made, this pasta is fairly robust once cooked, so serve it with any sauce of your choosing. We went for the trusty family favourite, pairing it with our signature tomato sauce and meatballs.
Thank you for the ideas. Can you do this without the Xanthan Gum?
Hi Melissa, you’re welcome! And great question. I am currently working on some GF options that don’t include xanthan gum, but I’m not quite happy with the results yet. Unfortunately, having spinach as an ingredient is trickier again than simply GF (as it introduces moisture and decreases the actual ratio of flour in the recipe), so it might be a while before I figure it out for this one. Sorry!