I'd like to use fresh homemade pasta tonight in place of bagged egg noodles. My question is, should I prep the noodles in boiling water in anyway, or should I skip that step and add the freshly made noodles where the recipe calls for it?
here is the recipe:
1 lb ground beef
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
8 oz tomato sauce
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
8 oz egg noodles
Brown and drain ground beef. Add beef back to the pan over low heat and stir in minced garlic, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and tomato sauce. Simmer for 5 minute and remove from heat. Meanwhile, boil egg noodles for 2 minutes less than the lowest time on the package directions. (They WILL continue cooking in the oven. No one likes an overcooked noodle!) Drain noodles and combine them with the cottage cheese and sour cream.
Spray a 9×9 baking dish with cooking spray and put the noodle mixture in the bottom. Top with reserved meat sauce. Cover with cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until bubble and cheese is melted. You can broil the top for a minute or 2 if you want the cheese to brown. Remove from oven and serve!
Best Answer
Personally I'd suggest blanching your pasta. By blanching:
I mean get a big pan of heavily salted water on a rolling boil.
Drop your pasta into the water, give it a stir.
After 1 min or when the water has come back to boil drain the pasta off.
At this point your pasta will still be el' dante but not raw which is what I suspect the directions are suggesting when they say "2 min less than instructed" then just use it at the mixing with sour cream step.
If you were to just use the pasta freshly made it will likely not have the texture desired. Boiling it will help moisten it up and start to cook the flour.