Fresh Pasta and New Digs

By now, you may have heard that the kosher culinary school, the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts, had to close abruptly in the middle of our semester. The closure was due to a long-term financial and licensing issue that was not able to be resolved.

This is the email that I sent out to my sponsors immediately following Thanksgiving weekend:

I would like to update you about the situation happening with my culinary school program. After 11 weeks of the semester, the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts abruptly shut its doors on Friday, November 27, due to a financial and licensing issue. My culinary program had about 5 weeks left in the program, and it was looking like we would not be able to finish or receive our certificate of completion. After a tough weekend, the class met for our food safety review (we will still be able to take the ServeSafe Food Safety certification test in late December) on Sunday morning to discuss the situation with the director of the school, Jesse Blonder, and the majority owner of the school, Elka Pinson.

Confused and angry as to why the school closed mid-semester and without warning, we tried to get some answers. With as much information they would share, we found out that there was a decision made to not pursue a license to run a professional training program in the kitchen above the Happy Home store. Because they did not have a license, they were given a cease and desist order from the state of New York. However, the school chose to continue its enrolled recreational night and afternoon classes, since "those people have already enrolled and paid." This statement was unsatisfactory for us, since we, too, had all enrolled and paid for classes at the school. There was no other answer as to why we couldn't stay other than that the owner and director did not want to face criminal charges.

As a class, we demanded a solution; there was no way we were going to just quietly walk away from this. We pressed Mrs. Pinson for a solution, but she did not have a satisfactory answer. We designated a class representative to go to her house for a meeting and to discuss next steps with legal counsel.

Thankfully, our class rep was able to find a kitchen in Crown Heights that we are able to rent and continue classes unofficially. There is no confirmation yet as to if we will be getting a certificate of completion for the course, but we are still working on that. We received refunds for any balance we had left on the course, and we will be using that money to order supplies, pay for the rental space, and to pay the chef and dish washer.

As it stands, we will be continuing classes beginning Monday, December 9 at the Razag Ballroom in Crown Heights. Classes will continue until the end of December, as regularly scheduled. Since we will have missed a week (4 class days), the chef will be modifying our matrix to accommodate the change. We have two designated students to assist with ordering, receiving, and prepping our daily materials, and we will have use of a laundry facility.

I want to thank you all for your continued support during these few months, and I look forward to sharing everything I've learned with you! I hope you have a great rest of the week, and keep following the blog! www.fstopfood.com Even though we are changing locations, I will still be documenting my classes and posting recipes.

---

We were, in fact, able to reconvene at the Ballroom on December 9, and have been having classes with our esteemed chef, Avram Wiseman. Below you'll find the first post from our new location about making pasta and sauces from scratch.

---

The previous day, a few classmates and I got together to unload and organize all of our pots/pans/ingredients that were shipped over from the culinary school in Flatbush. We were able to get everything we needed, thanks to a few classmates who did the grocery shopping at Restaurant Depot and Costco.

It took a little while for us to get back into the groove, but here you can see everything set up for Pasta Day.

Chef demonstrating how to mix pasta dough by hand on a stainless steel surface.

To mix the dough, you need to pour the ingredients inside a well of flour and mix from the inside-out.

You'll end up with a ball of dough that looks like this: 

Here, chef is demonstrating how to make broccoli pasta with dough made in the food processor.

Broccoli Pasta!

Then we started working on sauces. As a class, we made marinara, pesto, and putanesca (an Italian sauce made with capers, olives, and anchovies).

Above, you can see classmate Bonnie's daughter visiting.

Here you can see chef demonstrating how to fold and crank out the pasta dough. It is run through a pasta machine at least 6 times to thin the dough to the desired thickness.

Using the other side of the pasta machine, the dough is cut into even noodles.

Here's my dough!

And my noodles!

Everyone working on a batch of dough.

Here's Bracha, making another face...

My pasta, boiling for a few minutes. Since this pasta is fresh, it does not take as long to cook. However, you will not get "al dente" (chewy pasta) with a fresh dough becuase the noodles are already soft. To get al dente, you need to dry the noodles completely and then boil them.

Pasta with Garlic Pesto

My pasta with marinara sauce

------
Fresh Pasta
1 lb flour
6 large eggs
1 oz. olive oil
1 TB water
pinch of salt

Make a mountain out of flour on a clean kitchen surface.
Next, make a well in the center and pour in the oil, water, salt, and two eggs.
Use a fork to scramble the liquids in the well and you'll start to see flour being incorporated into the well.
Add two eggs at a time until you have all six, mixing with a fork until all ingredients are incorporated. 
The dough may be sticky - you'll knead it until it comes together. If it's really sticky, add flour a sprinkle at a time until it comes together.
Let the dough rest under an inverted bowl for 30 minutes.

Next, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll each piece with a rolling pin until you are able to fold the dough into thirds. Fold into thirds, roll out, flip around, fold in thirds from the other direction and roll out again. 
Next, run through a pasta machine on increasingly thinner settings (at least 5).
Cut the dough into even sections. These will be how long your pasta will be. 
When that is complete, run the thinned dough through the cutting section of the pasta machine.

If you are serving right away, place pasta in salted boiling water for 4-6 minutes, drain, add sauce, and serve.
If you are not using immediately, let air dry. When you are ready to use, drop in salted boiling water for 8-12 minutes.


Enjoy!