Pasta Fresca

My oldest son was home from college this weekend and I definitely wanted to fix a classic meat sauce for him, a bolognese sauce, which he loves. But which pasta to fix? I could make farfalle, which he likes a lot and holds the sauce well. But having him home just seemed to call for a fresh fettuccine, which is really a labor of love and the traditional pasta to accompany a bolognese sauce. It's easy to make and yet the time and effort you put into it seems to be a satisfying thing to do when you want to cook something special for someone.

I really love dried semolina pasta, but I have never found a dried fettuccine that I like. I have tried many brands and even the ones made with bronze dies. So when I want fettuccine, I prefer to make it by hand - fresh. I really hope that you try it. Make it on a Saturday or Sunday when you have lots of time and really enjoy the process. Pour yourself a glass of wine and have fun.

I must say, though, that in the years when I was first married and had a hand cranked Atlas pasta machine to roll the sheets out with, I did not make pasta as much as I do now. That is because I eventually bought a KitchenAid mixer and purchased the pasta roller attachments. To make fresh pasta now is a snap. The machine just basically cranks the rollers for you, instead of you doing it yourself. I had the standard mixer first and then a few years ago upgraded to the professional stand mixer, which can do a triple batch of dough for pizza or bread. A real work horse. This machine has been my partner in the kitchen and I really don't know what I would do without it. This weekend alone I used it to make pancake batter, make focaccia dough, grind meat for the bolognese sauce and make the fresh fettuccine. 


To make traditional pasta dough by hand, you only need flour and eggs. That's it. Any recipe that tells you to add water, salt or olive oil you should just ignore. Water, I believe, makes the pasta gummy. Flour and good fresh eggs are all you need. You usually mound the flour on the counter and make a well in the center and beat the eggs with a fork and start incorporating the flour, little by little. But I like to do this in my mixer now, with the dough hook. It really is the same action. I place some flour in the mixer bowl, break the eggs in the middle, attach the dough hook and start mixing. It does the same thing as when you start mixing by hand with a fork, only easier. If you have a KitchenAid mixer and the dough hook, try it.

I usually figure that 3/4 cup of flour and 1 egg will feed 3 people. That's my beginning measurement. But I always add more egg or just egg yolks, to make it richer. This weekend I tripled the recipe and used 2.25 cups of flour and 4 eggs plus one more egg yolk.  And if you remember my pizza post, when making doughs you add most of the flour to the wet ingredients and at the end slowly add only how much more flour the dough will take. This is a very important technique to know and you will use it whenever you make any kind of dough.


Fresh Pasta

1.5 cups Italian 00 flour or unbleached all purpose flour
2 eggs minimum (I always add a couple more eggs or egg yolks to make it richer - this is optional)

this makes about 5-6  servings

Mound 3/4 of the flour on counter or in mixer bowl. Make a well and break eggs in the center. Begin beating eggs with a fork or, using dough hook, start mixing. When most of the flour has been incorporated, begin adding the rest. Only add as much as the dough will take. You want a firm dough, not sticky, but not completely dry. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for at least 20 minutes.

Cut off a third of the pasta dough and, using the roller attachment, being to roll out dough. Start at #1 on the roller attachment. Keep dusting the dough with flour so the dough won't stick. When the dough comes out, fold into thirds and put it back through the rollers. Do this several times. The dough will become very soft. Dust the dough again with flour and move the rollers to #2. Put the dough through again.


I put the dough through twice at every number. Keep going until you reach #5. Put the dough through this number once. The dough strip will be very long. Place on floured counter and cut into 10 inch lengths. Place on floured towel to dry out for about 10 minutes before cutting. Do this with the remaining dough.



Switch to the fettuccine attachment and run dough strips through the cutters. Mound the fettuccine in little "nests" on a floured towel to dry out.

After about 10 minutes, fluff the nests so the fettuccine doesn't stick together. Do this a few times and then leave the pasta alone, because it becomes brittle as it completely dries.

You can leave the pasta on this floured towel until you are ready to use it.  Marcella Hazan says she even stores hers in airtight containers after it is completely, thoroughly dried.

By the way, if you are interested in fresh pasta, this month's issue of Saveur magazine is about Classic Pasta - how to make it by hand and how to make a good bolognese sauce. The recipes are diverse - every good Italian cook has their version. It's a beautiful issue.

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Eggplant Rollatini

This makes a delicious vegetarian entree or a filling side dish. You all know how to make risotto now - remember my risotto post? For this recipe, however, instead of making a saffron type risotto, I make it with a little tomato paste and very light beef broth. You can certainly use vegetable broth if you want to keep it a vegetarian dish. This dish is great because you can make it in the morning, or even the day before, refrigerate it and bring it to room temperature before baking.

There is a lot of debate with cooks about whether to salt eggplant or not. Some people claim that salting the eggplant before cooking helps get rid of any bitterness. Salt does help suppress bitterness in foods, this is true, but most people rinse off the salt before cooking. Actually, the main reason to salt eggplant is to help with the amount of oil the eggplant soaks up during cooking. If you have ever cooked eggplant, you know it can absorb an unbelievable amount of oil. That is because eggplant is full of tiny air pockets. It is actually just like a sponge. When you slice eggplant and then salt it before cooking, the salt draws out the moisture and helps collapse the air pockets, so it takes on a lot less oil. It is worth doing.

This recipe makes 5 rollatini.

For the Risotto:

1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup arborio or carnaroli rice
4 cups light beef broth (or vegetable broth), heated
1/3 cup grated parmesan

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy saucepan. Add the garlic and saute gently for one minute. Add the tomato paste and cook for one minute. Add the rice and cook for about a minute more.

Start adding the warm broth and stir the risotto. Every time the rice absorbs the liquid, add a couple more ladles. Keep stirring for about 25 to 30 minutes. Take the risotto off the heat and add the cheese. Transfer to a bowl and let cool before assembling rollatini.

For the Eggplant:

1 large eggplant
oilve oil
marinara sauce





Slice the very ends off the eggplant. Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices. You should have 5 slices for a large eggplant. Salt the slices heavily and place in a colander for about one hour. Rinse the salt off the eggplant and press with paper towels to dry.

Heat a grill or grill pan on the stove. Make sure it's hot before beginning. Brush the eggplant slices on both sides with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill on both sides until you have nice grill marks and the eggplant is pliable.



Place a little marinara sauce in the bottom of a small baking dish. Place some risotto all along the eggplant slices and roll up and place seam side down in baking dish. Top with marinara sauce. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes covered. Remove cover and bake an additional 10 minutes. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

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Italian Easter Bread

(Please note that I have moved my blog as of September, 2009. This post is now at: http://tinyurl.com/y9z5k38. Please hop on over and read this post at my new site. Thanks!)

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Almond Tart

This is one of our favorite desserts.  In fact, Brian and I think this could be the best dessert we've ever had. And that's not surprising because it's Lindsey Shere's Almond Tart from Chez Panisse and it was the most popular dessert on that menu for thirty years. I have to provide dessert for a progressive dinner this weekend and I knew this was what I was going to fix.  I fixed a couple of them.  We love it. Serve this with a glass of Amaretto and it's just about the perfect thing.

I am using the recipe given in the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook by Alice Waters. Lindsey Shere, the original pastry chef who developed the recipe, gives a slightly different version in the biography that Thomas McNamee wrote last year about Alice Waters*.  She also talks at length about how to bake the tart.



Lindsey's Almond Tart

for recipe only, click here

serves 6-8

tart pastry
1 stick butter (real butter)
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
4 drops each of almond and vanilla extracts
1 tablespooon water

Put the flour and sugar in a food processor. Process til blended. Add the butter in slices and process. Add the extracts and water and process til it gathers up in a ball. Wrap in plastic and chill until you are ready to use it. Then take it out and bring it to room temperature.

filling
1 cup unpeeled raw sliced almonds
1 cup whipping cream
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
1 tablespoon kirsch
2 drops almond extract

Press the tart pastry into a 9-inch tart form with a removable ring. You can't really roll out this dough - it's easier just to press it in.  Press the dough evenly over the bottom and sides about 1/8 inch thick. Refrigerate for about an hour. Bake the tart in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until it begins to set and brown. Remove the tart to a rack and cool to room temperature.

In a heavy saucepan, mix all the of the filling ingredients and cook mixture over low heat until sugar dissolves and the texture is silky, about 10 to 15 minutes. Cool the mixture slightly and pour it into the tart shell.

Place a second oven rack under your baking rack and line with a piece of foil. This tart will bubble over and the foil will catch the mess. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. The filling will bubble up a lot most of the cooking time and then at the end it will begin to caramelize. When the filling is golden, remove tart to a cake rack and let cook to room temperature before cutting.

*This biography of Alice

Waters and Chez Panisse

 is a wonderful read. 

Thomas McNamee interviews 

so many of the original characters

 from Chez Panisse, including

 Jeremiah Tower. A lot of 

"behind the scenes" 

interesting, funny stories.

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Finding Recipes on the Internet

How many of you use the internet to find recipes? A lot of people do. But the best place to find recipes is on food blogs. The content of some of these sites is amazing. They just don't give out recipes, they offer a lot of great information and amazing food photography. Deb and Alex over at Smitten Kitchen have a post about a new food blog search engine that was created by some other food bloggers and powered by Google. This is a great resource when you are looking for a recipe. I have added their search widget at the bottom of my web page.  Anyone can use it or, if you like, just add this link to your bookmarks: foodblogsearch.com

Buon Appetito! Bookmark on Delicious

Farro Salad

This is one of my favorite dishes. Sometimes I make a big batch of this and then have it for lunch for a few days. It's easy and a very healthy dish. Farro has become quite popular now and can be found on a lot of menus at good Italian restaurants. It is an ancient grain that has been eaten in Italy for eons. It's very similar to spelt. In fact, some people claim they are the same thing and some people say they are different. They are very close. I have cooked both and I believe spelt is a little harder and takes a little longer to cook. If you can't find farro, just use spelt. I can only buy farro when I travel out of town and can pick some up.

At our farmer's market last year, there was a family selling ground spelt flour. I asked the lady if I could buy some whole and she was mystified - she couldn't understand why I would want to eat it whole.   I bugged her every week and finally one week she remembered to bring a bag of unground spelt and she happily gave it to me and would not charge me. It was delicious in this salad.

Farro Salad

1 cup farro or spelt
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 medium red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme
1 Tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
olive oil

Place farro in small saucepan. Simmer for about 20 minutes. If using spelt, simmer for about 35 minutes. When it's tender, it's done. Drain.

Chop peppers and onions. Mince garlic. Spread out on a baking sheet, drizzle with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and toss and then roast at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Stir halfway through cooking time.

In large bowl, toss farro with vegetables and fresh herbs. Drizzle olive oil over and season generously with salt and pepper.

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Penne with Salmon in Vodka Sauce

Please note that I have moved my blog as of September, 2009. THIS POST can now be read here. Please jump on over to my new site to read it! Thanks!

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Stuffed Peppers

I love stuffing vegetables. I love to stuff tomatoes, peppers and zucchini. When you bake peppers like this, you can make a stuffing out of a lot of things - a rice pilaf, risotto, any kind of tiny pasta or even quinoa. These are stuffed with Israeli Couscous, sometimes called pearl pasta. And that's exactly what it is - little pasta. They are fairly bland, so you have to give them a little saute first and deliver some flavor to them before you stuff and bake. Did you know red bell peppers have more Vitamin C than orange juice?


4 bell peppers, two red, two yellow
1 cup Israeli Couscous
1 small red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup wine
chopped parsley
Grated Parmesan Cheese

Cut the peppers in half. Clean the insides, removing all seeds. Lay the peppers in a baking dish, cut side up. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook the pasta according to directions on the package. Drain.

In a large skillet, heat about two tablespoons of olive oil. Saute the red onion for a few minutes and then add the garlic and saute for one minute. Add the wine and let this cook off. Add the chicken stock and let this cook off. Turn off the heat. Add some chopped parsley and grated cheese. Stuff peppers with mixture.

Cover baking dish with foil tightly. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, until the peppers are easily pierced with a sharp knife. Grate extra cheese on top and chopped parsley.

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Polenta

Throw out all your polenta recipes and just follow Bill Buford's instructions in Heat. Really. What he learned about polenta at Babbo is the real deal (and it's a darn funny read). Polenta takes more liquid than any recipe out there says (I hope Marcella Hazan doesn't read food blogs!) and it really is better the longer you cook it. Oh, and by the way, even though Mario recommends instant polenta (gag) in his cookbooks, he never uses it in his restaurants!  Thanks a lot, Mario!  

So for good polenta, you want to use the coarse kind. It's very easy to find now. You need a good heavy pot, a whisk and a spatula. The amount of liquid doesn't matter, because you are going to keep adding it until the polenta doesn't take any more (remember my pizza dough post?).

start out with about 6 cups water
1.5 cups polenta
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
3 Tablespoons butter (yes, butter - are you really still eating margarine?)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Bring the water to a simmer. Slowly add the polenta in a steady stream into the pot and whisk as you add it. Whisk for a couple of minutes and then let the polenta do its thing. Keep it at a low simmer. It may pop out at you, so be aware. Switch to your rubber spatula and give the polenta a good stir every now and then. When it absorbs all the water, add more water. And more. And keep stirring. And add more water. After about an hour, the polenta will be done. The granules will have become creamy and soft. Take it off the heat, add the butter and parmesan. You can serve it at this point with grilled meat or even put a nice bolognese sauce over it. That makes a great meal.

I took mine and poured it into an 8x8 baking dish. I chilled it for several hours in the fridge, cut into circles with a biscuit cutter and grilled it. I did add chopped fresh basil on top and more parmesan cheese.

Tip: If you want a richer flavor, you can also add some chicken stock instead of some of the water.
Tip: If you are grilling it, take the pan out of the fridge a good hour beforehand and cut the polenta into the shapes you want and then let them come to room temp. Putting this recipe in an 8x8 pan makes very thick polenta servings and grilling them will not heat them all the way through.
Final Tip: Don't even bother to wash the pot. Fill it with soap and water and let it sit for a couple of hours. Then the polenta on the bottom comes right out.

Polenta used: Bob's Red Mill Coarse Grind Polenta

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Pignoli

Brian and I go to an Italian conversation group on Sunday nights and tonight is the last class for this session. I wanted to take something to hand out to everyone and I figured what better then these Pignoli - Italian pine nut and almond cookies. Brian loves these cookies and I even love them, and I'm not much of a cookie person at all. These are very light and have no egg yolk or butter in them. And you can't believe how great they are with an espresso until you try them.

Pignoli
For a printer friendly recipe click here

makes about 40 cookies

1-1/4 cups pine nuts (plus more for garnish)
1 cup whole raw almonds (not roasted)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spread 1-1/4 pine nuts and the almonds on a baking sheet. Toast about 8 minutes. Let cool.

Grind nuts in a food processor with 6 tablespoons sugar until finely ground. Transfer to a large bowl. Add orange zest and salt. Mix thoroughly.

Beat 2 egg whites until fluffy. Gradually add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and the vanila and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold into nut mixture.

Line baking sheets with either Silpat or parchment. Form cookies into balls, about 2 teaspoons each. I use a melon baller and dip it in water when it gets sticky. Flatten cookies slightly. Brush with the last egg white and press a few pine nuts in the top for garnish.

Bake until slightly golden about 14-15 minutes.

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