Pane carasau

I have a lot of kitchen equipment. Maybe too much. After all, who really needs an ice-cream maker, popcorn maker, pasta machine, food processor, mini food processor, blender, mini deep-fat fryer, ravioli accessory, voodoo man knife stand, two teapots, two stove-top coffee machines, a kettle, and many, many pots and pans? And that's not counting the stuff we shipped back a couple of months ago. Whenever we look at houses for sale, the size of the kitchen is of near-primary importance -- anything less than 12'x10' ain't going to cut it.

So, I'm always delighted when I find a recipe that allows me to make extra use of a piece of equipment that I already possess. I spent last week looking through my new World Breads book and came across pane carasau, also known as carta di musica. This simple recipe requires you to roll out the little balls of dough incredibly thinly, never my favorite task -- but in a lightbulb moment, I figured I could use my pasta machine to do it for me. I've seen the pizza makers at our excellent local do something similar, albeit with a much larger machine. Anyway, I gave it a go and bingo! Each ball took less than a minute to roll out to near transparency and then only a few more minutes to cook in the oven. Piles of crispy, rosemary and sea salt crackers for only a few minutes work. Hmm, I wonder if could use the pasta machine for rolling out pastry? That would mean I could bin the rolling pin, freeing up some valuable cupboard space...