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nourishing the body

pasta

Basil Pappardelle with Lamb Ragu

Dinner fell in to place so nicely this evening. I picked a bunch of heirloom tomatoes from the garden today – eight different varieties. So I set about to make some tomato sauce. I sautéed some onion and garlic in a pot and added a cup or so of red wine. I cooked it down until the wine was completely evaporated. Into the pot went a bit bowl of the chopped tomatoes along with some thyme, bay leaves and a few handfuls of fresh basil. Salt and pepper were added to taste. This was cooked down for about an hour and then strained through a food mill. The tomato sauce was added back to the pot and cooked down for another hour and a half until the sauce was thick, sweet and delicious.

I was trying to come up with something to make with the sauce when I spied a package of ground lamb in the freezer. Aha! Lamb ragu! I just need some pasta to go with it. Why not make some fresh pasta tonight? So I did. This is a simple pasta dough. I just threw 1 cup of semolina, 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 egg and about a half cup of water into my food processor. I wanted to flavor it up and give it a nice color so I threw in a large handful of basil leaves as well. The dough was kneaded in the processor for a few minutes and then for a minute or two by hand. This was wrapped in plastic and allowed to rest for 30 minutes. I rolled out the pasta into sheets using my pasta roller and then cut wide pappardelle noodles using my pizza cutter.

Here you can see the fresh pasta being gently simmered in a pot of hot water. Some of the green color disappeared on cooking but a subtle basil flavor remained in the pasta.
The ragu was made with some finely chopped carrots, onions and garlic in the sauté pan. The lamb was added and cooked through. The pan was deglazed with a half cup of red wine. The meat mixture was flavored with some corriander seed and dried and fresh rosemary. The tomato sauce was added and the mixture was simmered for about 40 minutes.
Once the pappardelle were cooked, they were tossed in the pan with some of the ragu to coat the noodles. About 60% of the ragu was removed from the pan prior to adding the noodles.
The pasta was plated up and topped with a good portion of more ragu and some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano.

This dish was SO good. Not a morsel was left!

Pappardelle with mushroom and eggplant ragu

I know ragu is traditionally a meat-based sauce but I think these mushrooms are ‘meaty’ enough to consider this sauce a ragu. Combined with homemade semolina pappardelle, this was a home run hit for dinner. My sauce started with a combination of baby portobello and button mushrooms.

They were halved and sliced.
I also cubed up a whole eggplant for this dish.
Of course you can’t have a pasta sauce without garlic and onions!
First the onions and the mushrooms were cooked down until softened and tender. Then the garlic was added to the pan.
The eggplant was combined with the cooked onions and mushrooms.
Everything was sautéed until the eggplant began to soften.
A bit of red wine was added to the pan.
And a can of tomato paste was stirred into the sauce.
The ragu was covered and cooked down until the eggplant dissolved and the sauce was rich and delicious. A little water was added during the cooking to keep the sauce from getting to dry.
Meanwhile, a pasta dough made from all purpose flour, semolina flour and eggs was prepared and rolled out into sheets using my pasta roller.
The pappardelle was cut by hand into wide noodles.
The noodles were boiled until al dente and tossed with the ragu. Finally I topped it off with some parmigiano reggiano. 

Divine Dining Redux #2 – Linguini a la Carbonara

Thanks everyone for being so patient as I navigate my busy life. I promised to be back with details about my dinner so here you go.

My second course was a pasta dish. I was inspired to make a carbonara based on a post over at Peter Minakis’ Kalofagas Greek food blog. If you haven’t been there before, you are missing out.

I followed his recipe pretty much as written except I doubled it. Instead of Romano cheese I used parmigiano reggiano. I did use pancetta. Worth the extra cost, definitely.

Ingredients (four small portions)

Linguini (I used a good artisan dried linguini from the market ~4 oz)
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced pancetta
splash of white wine
pasta water
black pepper
chopped parsley

The pasta was placed in a large pot of salted boiling water to cook. In a large pan was added the pancetta. It was cooked until rendered and crispy – but not darkened. The onions and garlic were added to the pan and cooked down until softened. While the onions were cooking the egg yolks were beaten and the cheese was whisked in. A splash of wine was added to the onions. When the pasta was cooked it was added to the onion/pancetta mixture along with a bit of the pasta water. The water contains some of the starch and helps thicken the sauce. You can always add more later if you don’t have enough to loosen the sauce. The heat was turned off and the egg/cheese mixture was mixed with the pasta. Finally the chopped parsley and cracked black pepper were added.

That’s it! Easy as pie and oh, so tasty.

Summertime Pesto

Nothing says summer like fresh basil in the garden. My basil is just starting to come to fruition and I should have a LOT of it very soon. Of course the best thing for basil is fresh pesto. I love it on simple pasta with nothing else. Tonight I was looking for a quick meal and penne with pesto was just the thing to satisfy me. I threw in some fresh spinach too. I don’t usually do this but tonight I wanted a more hearty green pesto full of nutritious greens. My only problem this evening is that I ran out of parmigiano reggiano. I know – sacrilege! But it happened. The pesto was good but it just wasn’t quite right without it. For this pesto I used a couple heaping handfuls of fresh picked basil, a handful of fresh baby spinach leaves, 3 cloves of garlic, the juice of half a lemon, a half cup of walnuts (pine nuts are also traditionally used), salt, pepper, and olive oil – maybe 3 tablespoons. I threw it all in the blender except for the olive oil which was drizzled in until the consistency was just right. This was simply poured over the hot cooked pasta and it was mixed up and enjoyed! Ah, Pesto!

Tarragon Chicken and Pea Penne

Nothing says spring like fresh peas. Unfortunately I don’t have fresh peas but these organic frozen peas sure were sweet. I made a quick and dirty dinner with whole wheat penne pasta. I cooked up some onions and garlic in olive oil, added some chopped chicken breast to it. Once that was almost cooked through in went a bunch of frozen peas. I made a sauce using a couple tablespoons of flour mixed with a cup or so of skim milk. This was added to the chicken and peas along with a half cup of fresh chopped tarragon from the garden. The cooked pasta was tossed with this mixture and topped with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. It was YUMMY.