Homemade Pasta with Garlic and Greens

Found in our CSA box: Arugula rapini.
Still obsessed with: Homemade pasta.
(Really, when you think about it, there was only one thing we could do....)

Ingredients
Homemade pasta (e.g., this fettuccine), cooked al dente

Olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed
3-5 big handfuls of greens (e.g., arugula, spinach, or baby mustard)
Generous glug or two white wine
Zest of 1 Meyer lemon
Salt & black pepper
1 tbsp chopped parsley
Grated Parmesan cheese

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a wide pan with deep sides over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 30-60 seconds until it softens but does not brown. Add the greens and a pinch of salt and saute, stirring, until the greens just start to wilt slightly at the edges. Add the wine and lemon zest and cover, turning the heat down slightly. Steam until the greens just begin to wilt for real, then uncover, stir again, and add salt and pepper to taste.

When the pasta is al dente, drain most but not all of the water and add to the pan with the sauce. Sprinkle with a little more olive oil and toss with the greens. Serve hot, topped with parsley and Parmesan.

Serves 2.

The Pasta Chronicles, Cont'd: Multigrain Pasta Dough

After several selfless attempts at perfecting a recipe for multigrain pasta dough, we finally hit upon a balance of ingredients last night that passed the delicious-enough-to-post threshold. [Update: This one is even better.] This should work for any noodle -- we've used versions of it for ravioli, pappardelle, and tagliolini, and the dough is elastic enough that it holds up to the thinner settings on the pasta machine without breaking. The elasticity seems to depend on the protein content (more protein = more elastic), which is something to keep in mind if you decide to tweak the recipe below: the quinoa and chickpea flours are fairly high in protein, so if you substitute whole wheat flour or another grain, you may need to increase the egg and/or milk to compensate. Conversely, if you increase the amount of high-protein grain flour, you could reduce or cut out the milk entirely.

Ingredients
3/4 cups stone ground whole wheat flour, plus extra for dusting
3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1/4 tsp salt
Liberal dousing of freshly ground white or black pepper (optional)*
2 pastured eggs
2 tbsp olive oil
Scant 2 tbsp milk + 2 tbsp warm water

*White pepper complements winter squash recipes, and black pepper goes particularly well with lemon or basil. If you do use pepper, make sure you don't grind it too coarsely (big pieces can rip the dough as you get to the thinner pasta machine settings).

Combine the flours, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

Make a well in the middle and add the olive oil and eggs, then use a fork to begin blending the flour at the edge of the well into the center of the eggs. Add the water and milk slowly as you blend, and continue until it takes on a fairly uniform consistency. (You can do this on a cutting board instead, but the Household Kneader, after trying it both ways, says it's much easier in a bowl.)



Dust a cutting board and your hands with flour, then take the dough out of the bowl. Knead for about 10 minutes, dusting the board with additional flour as needed, until the dough is very elastic. Form a ball, then set in a lightly greased bowl and cover with saran wrap. Let rest for about 30 minutes.

To form the noodles, take a ball of dough about the size of your fist, dust very lightly with flour if it's sticky, and run it through the widest setting of your pasta machine. Fold in half, and repeat. Fold the ends in to create a rectangle, and run it through once more (the goal is to have a fairly rectangular sheet that's on the wide side). Adjust the pasta machine to the next setting, and run through again. Continue decreasing the width, one setting at a time, until you reach setting 7, laying the sheet of dough on a cutting board lightly dusted with flour once in the middle if necessary.

For cut noodles (e.g., fettuccine, tagliolini), hang the pasta sheets on a pasta tree to dry for about 20 minutes, then run each sheet through the pasta machine attachment of your choice.

For pappardelle:
After you finish rolling each sheet, lay it gently on the lightly-floured cutting board to cut the pappardelle noodles (a pastry cutter works well for this, or just use a paring knife). We made our noodles just under 3/4" wide, but you can make them whatever width you'd like (just don't forget that they expand quite a bit when you cook them).

To cook, bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Add the pappardelle, stir, and cover to bring back to a boil quickly. Boil for 3 minutes or until al dente.

Serves 3-4 when making noodles. For ravioli, you probably only need half as much.

The Pasta Chronicles, Continued: Pappardelle with Leeks and Applewood Smoked Bacon

Closer, ever closer...we chucked the fava flour and tried quinoa flour in its place, to good effect. Still not perfect enough to post, though, so we clearly have to keep trying. Possibly for weeks, if not months. Possibly twice a day, for weeks, if not months. (Okay, we may be getting slightly addicted. This homemade pasta thing is kind of amazing.)

In the meantime, here's another good sauce -- this one for pappardelle, or fettuccine would probably work too....




Ingredients:
1 medium leek, halved lengthwise, cleaned, and sliced (white and light green parts)
2 slices Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon, sliced crosswise into strips
1/2 bunch Russian kale, sliced crosswise
10-12 leaves fresh basil, chiffonade
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch or two Meyer lemon zest (optional)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 poached eggs

Cook bacon over medium-high heat in a wide pan with deep sides until it starts to brown lightly. Add the leeks and turn the heat down to medium. Fold in the kale and a pinch of salt, and saute for a few minutes until the kale wilts. Add the basil, stir for another moment or two, and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Add lemon zest if desired, and turn off the heat.

Fold in cooked pappardelle or linguini, toss to coat evenly, and serve hot, sprinkled lightly with Parmesan, with an egg on top.

Serves 2.

In Search of the Perfect Pasta

2011 brings with it, among other things, a gratifying spike of new subscribers (welcome!), a distinct lack of the stomach bug that stamped out any lingering culinary enthusiasm from 2010 (phew), and (are you ready?) a new, long-coveted, sleek and silver PASTA MACHINE. Thereby inevitably triggering the latest alliterative quest for whole-grain-infused Italian food.

Our first attempt at multigrain pasta dough was surprisingly uncatastrophic. But it turns out that fava flour, while beguiling in theory, tastes like fava. Strongly of fava. As in, thoroughly permeates your lovingly hand-crafted roasted squash ravioli even when used in very small quantities. But now we know, and, as G.I. Joe would say if he ever attended pasta parties, knowing is half the pasta dough battle.

In the meantime, though, the ravioli filling and sauce (loosely adapted from this recipe) were delectable enough to warrant posting, and will work with plain old egg-and-semolina pasta dough as well as with our yet-to-be-perfected multigrain blend. 

Ingredients
For the filling:
1 cup roasted squash puree (we used a papaya squash, which was wonderfully flavorful and made a very thick puree, but you could also use some other heirloom variety or butternut)
Olive oil
Pasture butter
3 tbsp minced shallot
Salt & freshly ground white pepper
Liberal sprinkling of freshly ground nutmeg
1 tbsp pastured cream

For the sauce:
Handful of freshly toasted walnuts, broken into pieces
Olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
6-10 sage leaves, chopped
Several handfuls baby red mustard greens, chopped
(or substitute a handful of regular mustard greens, finely chopped, and increase the spinach)
A handful of spinach, chopped
Handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
Freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano

Melt a small pat of butter and about 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and cook for 2-4 minutes until soft and just translucent, then fold in the squash puree. Continue to saute for a couple minutes (or more, if the squash is on the wetter side -- you want the mixture to be relatively thick). Stir in the cream, sprinkle with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg to taste, and set aside to cool.

Dust your pasta machine and a wooden cutting board with a little bit of flour. Take the pasta dough and break off a piece about the size of a fist (my husband pointed out that it was the size of my fist, not his, so envision a petite female fist as you do this if you're a towering giant like him), and feed it through the thickest setting of your pasta machine (Setting 1). Fold it in half, and repeat a few times (the goal is to make this starting piece kind of wide and rectangular, rather than long and skinny). Then, feed it through again on Setting 2, and continue working your way up the numbers until you reach Setting 7. (Note that it's much easier to do this with two people, so that one person can feed it in and turn the crank while the other guides it back out again). Hang each sheet on a pasta tree (or "pasta rack," if you prefer, which I don't) to dry a little as you prepare the rest.

Cut each sheet into rectangles of desired size (a pastry cutter works well here, or just a table knife, and ours were about 3.5" x 4.5"). Set the rectangle so that the shorter side is closest to you (make sure the surface beneath it has been lightly dusted with flour). Place a spoonful of filling at the center of the rectangle, and fold in half by bringing the furthest side to meet the closest side. Press those two sides together firmly to seal, then press to seal the right and left edges, moving inward until the filling in the center is well-defined. Trim the edges with a pastry cutter, if desired, or pinch to form a wonton shape.

For the sauce, heat a glug or two of olive oil in a deep saute pan over medium heat for about 30 seconds, and add in the garlic. Saute for a minute or two until it softens, then add the sage and stir a few times. Next, add the greens and saute until just wilted. Season with salt and white pepper to taste, and turn off the heat.

Drop pasta into rapidly boiling water and cook for 2-4 minutes until the pasta changes color (if you're not sure, fish one out, rinse it gently with a little cold water, and take a bite). Drain, then add to the pan with the sauce. Drizzle with a little olive oil, add the walnuts, and toss everything together. Serve topped with freshly grated Parmesan and parsley.

Serves 2-3.

Lemon Pappardelle with Tomatoes, Basil, and Smoked Bacon

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This post, though, is about pasta. Trader Joe's has this lemon pepper pappardelle that has relatively few ingredients (all recognizable), despite being processed enough that it can't really count as a whole food. But it's really, really good. And not every night can be a cook-everything-from-scratch night.

Serve this recipe with something green on the side. It's fairly easy, and (did I mention?) really, really good.

Ingredients
Lemon pepper pappardelle (or you could probably use egg pappardelle, and add a little lemon zest or lemon basil to the sauce)
Olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, pressed
1 1/2 slices Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon (or other good-quality, pastured bacon or pancetta)
A bunch of fragrant tomatoes, cut into chunks
A big handful of fresh basil, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper 
Splash white wine
A little Parmesan

Cook the pappardelle according to package directions, then drain.

Meanwhile, saute the onion in some olive oil over medium heat till soft, then remove and set aside. Add the bacon to the pan and cook for a few minutes until it starts to brown a little, then add the onion back in and also the garlic. Cook for a minute more, then stir in the tomatoes, half the basil, a pinch of salt, and some pepper. After a minute or two, add a small splash of wine, cook for another minute, and then turn off the heat.

Add the rest of the basil and the cooked pasta to the pan, toss, and serve with a little parmesan grated over the top.

Serves 2.