Home made Pici pasta with salmon and fennel soffritto

 If it had been dry I would have been out in the garden messing around, and as I did not wish to sit and read, it was in the kitchen that I did some of my playing around.  After the short apres lunch rest, I flicked round the copy of Waitrose Food I picked up when I popped into the store on Saturday, when for no reason except I didn't have any, picked up a bag of their Super Fine 00 Pasta flour. 

Chris Leach's recipe for Pici with clams & fennel soffritto sounded interesting.  The pasta is made with flour, water and olive oil.  I had thought hand made pasta needed egg, not that I am avoiding eggs, but it was intriguing. It is ages since I made fresh pasta , and not long after this, the pasta machine went to a charity shop.  It was the washing of the intricate machine that got to me.  Gnocchi has always been made from time to time too. 

I made just 100g worth of flour, but used some of the mashed up pumpkin which I had roasted yesterday plus a little warm water.  Next time I would warm up the pumpkin and puree it and use that to mix in with the flour and olive oil.

Since I already had a fennel bulb, and wine open, I made up the Soffritto as per the recipe but with no Pernod used dry Marsala, and with no clams used up large flakes of cooked fresh salmon, again a left over having been a way of cooking the 'trimmings' after I had portioned up two sides of Salmon fillets bought on Morrisons' 20% off Fish Friday. 

And added two small courgettes ready in the garden and some French Tarragon.  I've since watched how to make the pasta which seems easier than the technique shown in the magazine. since this was meant to be a Pumpkin Pici I topped the dish with roasted pumpkin seeds. I read an interesting article in Grape Tree Magazine about the benefits of Pumpkin seeds, and that roasting improves the antioxidant levels.  

It was very tasty...a nice supper on a damp evening.

Since what was to be my glass of wine left over from our weekend bottle went into the soffritto, I had a little glass of dry Marsala to make it a delicious dinner.