AIP Hand Rolled Pasta

A box of dried pasta boils in a few minutes, no rolling required. This one asks for closer to an hour, most of it spent rolling small pieces of dough between your palms into strands about the width of a pencil, one at a time, until a tray of them looks like something worth cooking. Pasta was one of the first foods most people on this protocol assumed they had said goodbye to, and building a bowl of it by hand, strand by uneven strand, says otherwise.

Green plantain is what makes this dough hold together, and unripe plantain is rich in a starch classified as resistant, meaning the body cannot break down much of it before it reaches the colon, where researchers have linked that kind of starch to measurable shifts in the bacteria living there. The olive oil blended into the plantain base is mostly monounsaturated fat, a type of fat some research has linked to a calmer inflammatory profile relative to other fats. Cassava flour and tapioca starch make up the rest of the dough, the plain workhorses that rarely get named but are doing real, structural work here.

Boil the strands just until they float, sauce them simply, and treat the finished bowl as proof that pasta has not disappeared from this way of eating.

Ingredients

• Green plantain, chopped (quantity: see verify flag)
• Olive oil (quantity: see verify flag)
• Additive-free coconut milk (quantity: see verify flag)
• Cassava flour (quantity: see verify flag)
• Tapioca starch (quantity: see verify flag)
• Coconut flour (quantity: see verify flag)
• Sea salt (quantity: see verify flag)

Note on quantities: The source archive for this recipe does not include measurements. Exact quantities must be confirmed from healmedelicious.com/aip-hand-rolled-pasta before this file is published or used with clients.

Method

1. Place the chopped green plantain in a blender with the olive oil and coconut milk. Blend on high until completely smooth with no chunks remaining. Scrape down the sides as needed. The mixture should be thick and creamy.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the cassava flour, tapioca starch, coconut flour, and sea salt.
3. Pour the blended plantain mixture into the flour bowl. Stir until a dough forms. If the dough is too wet to handle, add a small amount of cassava flour; if it is too dry and cracking, add a small splash of coconut milk. Knead briefly until the dough is smooth and pliable.
4. Pinch off a small piece of dough roughly the size of a cherry. Place it on a clean, dry surface and use your palms to roll it back and forth into a strand about the thickness of a pencil and 4 to 6 inches long. Set aside on a parchment-lined tray. Repeat with the remaining dough. Uneven thickness is part of the rustic character of this pasta.
5. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a rolling boil. Add the pasta strands in batches if needed so they do not clump together.
6. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes. The strands are ready when they float and are tender but still have a slight chew. Taste one to check.
7. Drain and serve immediately with an AIP-compliant sauce, olive oil and herbs, or a broth-based topping.

Make-ahead note: Hand-rolled pasta can be laid on a parchment-lined tray, left uncovered for 30 minutes to dry slightly, and then refrigerated for up to a day before cooking.

*Adapted from Heal Me Delicious*