greg cooks

nourishing the body

pappardelle

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. 

More Pasta

My pasta love affair is not over yet. With the same dough I made for the orrechiette, I rolled out another favorite pasta shape of mine, pappardelle. This is like a big wide fettucine noodle. I rolled them out into sheets using my pasta roller and then cut them into wide strips by hand. Another mushroom based sauce was perfect for this. I sautéed garlic, onion and mushrooms in olive oil, added bit of non-fat half and half for richness and tossed in some fresh grated parmigiano reggiano. This was garnished with a bit of fresh parsley. Another satisfying pasta meal.