The constant mention of whole wheat durum wheat flour made me wonder where in the world I would source a steady stream of this if I wanted to keep to the purists version of pasta.
Turns out the answer was very close to home, less than a km away.
Durum wheat is characterized as a 'hard' wheat, very similar if not actually what we call rava. Not surprised that wiki had a nice write-up about it here. The question was how to get this ground fine. The home blender did not do a great job and rightly so. Rava is fairly hard and does not powder like sugar crystals do. The neighbourhood miller stepped in and helped out here. I got a kilo done to see what would happen.
Recipe's call for a water:semolina flour ration of 1:2. That was a little over considering how quickly rava absorbs water when making upma. The resultant dough was soft and very pliable - not fit for rolling in the pasta machine. Since the idea was to experiment, I went ahead and added about a cup of normal wheat flour. Rolling this out was a breeze. I made the easiest of the lo - fettucini with prawn and tomato's. Simple and wholesome. The garnish was some agriforma that was lying around waiting for something like this.
Moral - this is THE pasta flour to use. No going back to anything else for a while. Next stop, penne. Not sure how it'll hold up, but worth a try.
