Pastravaganza

For my wife, giving me cooking toys for Christmas is a mixed blessing. On the good side, she gets to eat what I cook. On the bad side, she gets to clean up what I cook. I actually do try to clean up most of my messes, but I always miss something:  Oil splatters all over the stove. Some sort of sauce caked on the ceiling of the microwave. A ring around the bowl of something I put in the fridge. For someone who spends most of her weekend cleaning the house, I can understand this being a bit frustrating.

However, she bought me both a pasta maker and food mill for Christmas anyway. Even better, she had to work the Monday after New Year’s and I had the day off. While the cat’s away, the mice will play . . .

I decided that I would make three pastas: fettuccini and ravioli with the pasta maker and gnocchi with the food mill. I used a mixture of recipes from three different sources:

1) A food blog called "food52": This blog was started by Amanda Hesser, a food writer and editor for the New York Times, and Merrill Stubbs, who is also a food writer and a highly trained cook. Food52 is more than just a blog. It’s a food community allowing people to share and comment on recipes.

2) Paul Bertolli's "Cooking by Hand": This cookbook was recommended by my cousin, Tyler Montgomery, who himself has become an expert in charcuterie. This book is dedicated to the art of understanding what goes into making good food. When using recipes, I like to understand the reason behind the recipe. This book explains not only the science behind the food, but how cooking can be an art.

3) Todd English's "Cooking in Everyday English": This cookbook was another great Christmas present from my wife. English puts simple spins on classic meals. The cookbook is full of fantastic recipes that are easy to make and have all turned out very nicely, so far.

In detail, the steps were as follows:

Fresh ricotta for ravioli filling
(Used recipe from food52 by Jennifer Perillo)

This is my first time making my own cheese. Being the Wisconsin cheese lover that I am, it may not be a good idea for me to learn how to make my own, especially with a recipe this easy.

The recipe only calls for these four ingredients:

4 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
¾ cup buttermilk

½ teaspoon salt

I put all of these ingredients into a large pot and brought to a gentle boil. Once the mixture started to curd, I removed it from the heat and let it sit for 30 minutes in a dark place. Then I spooned the curd from pot and strained it through cheesecloth and a strainer. I let it sit for 10 minutes. Then SHAZAM! This is one of the best things I ever made. Light and fluffy and delicious. It was hard not to eat the whole thing and leave any for the ravioli.

Pasta for the ravioli and fettuccini
(From Todd English)

I used Todd English's pasta recipe, because it is very simple for my first attempt at successfully making pasta. I did try to make pasta once about 10 years ago with a pasta maker my sister gave me. It was a miserable failure. I recall that the kitchen, myself, and a now ex-girlfriend ended up with sticky flour everywhere. This negative experience resulted in a fear of making pasta, selling the pasta machine, breaking-up with the girlfriend (there may have been more to it than that), and waiting 10 years to try again.

This time I was armed with YouTube and an easy recipe. First, I watched a number of videos on how to correctly use the pasta maker and mix the flour and eggs.

The recipe used just the following:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup Semolina flour
1 tsp Kosher salt
3 large eggs
2 egg yolks

Both the cookbook and the videos show that you first mix the two flours and the salt together and make a mound on the counter. Then you are supposed to make a well in the mound and put the eggs and egg yolks in the well. You then whisk the eggs together in the well using a fork.

This wasn't as simple as the videos made it look. The eggs spilled over the sides and ended up all over the counter. I started having flashbacks of my experience 10 years ago. So I took a step back and used a flat dough cutter to mix everything together. After about 10 minutes of kneading, I had a smooth solid dough. I wrapped the ball of dough in plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

After chilling, I used a rolling pin to flatten the dough into about ¾ inch sheets. I then used my brand new Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Maker. It was very easy to use. I think it works like most pasta makers. The settings range from "0 – 9." You start at "0" and slowly feed the ¾ inch sheet through the pasta machine. Then increase the setting each time you feed the pasta through the machine. For the fettuccini, I stopped at the thinnest setting of "9." For the ravioli, I stopped at a thicker setting of "6."



For the fettuccini, I then fed it through an attachment to the machine that cut it into the fettuccini. I floured the pasta and then set it aside before cooking.

Ravioli

For the ravioli filling, I used a very basic recipe from Bertolli. It included the following:
3 tbs olive oil
8 ounces spinach leaves
1 garlic clove, minced
¾ cup fresh ricotta (from recipe above)
¼ cup parmigiano-reggiano, grated
1½ tsp salt

I first sautéed the spinach in one tbs olive oil until it wilted and released most of the liquid. I took it off the heat and let it cool. Once it was cool, I squeezed out the rest of the water with paper towels. Then I heated it back up in the pan with the remaining olive oil. I added the garlic and warmed it back up over low heat. Then I removed it from the heat and chopped it up into a paste. I mixed it with the rest of the ingredients. It was then ready for the ravioli.

I placed little rounded spoonfuls about a couple inches apart on half sheets of pasta. I used a brush to wet the edges of the pasta and then folded the pasta over and pressed the edges together. I then used a ravioli crimper to crimp and cut the edges. I dusted the ravioli with flour and then set them aside until I was ready for cooking.

Gnocchi with Butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano
(Paul Bertolli)

Who knew gnocchi was so easy? If you have never had gnocchi, they are basically little pillows made from flour, potato, and cream. They are similar to dumplings, but lighter and not stuffed with anything.

This recipe calls for the following:

Salt

1½ pounds of russet potatoes

1 whisked egg

¼ cup heavy cream

Freshly grated nutmeg

2 cups all-purpose flour

First, I boiled the potatoes in their skins for about 35 minutes. After cooling, I removed the skins. I now got to use my brand new OXO Food Mill. The food mill was very easy to use. It came with three different grates. I used the medium-sized grate. I added the potatoes to the mill and cranked it until I had fed all the potatoes through the mill into a mixing bowl. I then added the egg, cream and freshly grated nutmeg to the potatoes and completely mixed them together.

Next I used the flour to make the same type of mound that I made for the pasta. I then attempted to put the potato mixture in the well of the mound. I had a bit more success than I did with the pasta, but it was still fairly messy. After kneading into a smooth dough, I rolled the dough into about four ¾-inch ropes of pasta. I then cut the ropes into ½-inch pieces. I rolled each piece with the tines of a fork to give them the look of classic gnocchi. I also think this allows the gnocchi to cook more evenly.

Finally, I dusted the gnocchi heavily with flour. At first I didn't dust heavily enough and all the pieces stuck together. I had to re-roll them and cut again. This recipe made a lot of pasta. Since I had two other pastas already, I put half of these in the freezer to use at another time.

After simmering the remaining gnocchi in water for about five minutes (until they floated), I melted a stick of butter in a sauté pan. I added the gnocchi to the melted butter and mixed together. I removed them from the butter and mixed with grated parm before serving.

I served this as the first pasta course of the evening. These were unbelievable. The pillows were light and melted in our mouths. We could have devoured this in minutes but had to show a bit of self-control considering that we had two more pasta courses to come.

Tomato Sauce
(Todd English)

Since my wife absolutely loves tomato sauce, I decided to serve both the ravioli and the fettuccini with a quick tomato sauce that I found in Todd English's cookbook. I was also becoming a bit exhausted after cooking all day, so it was nice to only have one more sauce to cook and this recipe was simple.

The ingredients only included the following:

4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

¾ cup of olive oil

2  28-ounce cans of San Marzano tomatoes

½ teaspoon of Kosher salt

Fresh basil leaves (about 20)

I first simmered the garlic in olive oil, careful not to let the garlic brown. I then chopped the tomatoes and added them with juice from the cans to the sauté pan and added the salt. I brought this to a boil and then let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes. I added the basil and was ready to cook the pasta.

The sauce was fantastic. It had a really deep intense flavor. I think the San Marzano tomatoes were key. They seem to have so much more flavor then regular canned tomatoes. Considering that they are about $5 a can, they better be good. The sauce is thicker and taste is deeper, sweeter, and less acidic. (See the Wikipedia page for more info.)

If anything, I think I probably could have cut down on the olive oil. It didn't taste oily, but there was a lot of oil sitting on top of the sauce.

I served the fettuccini as the second pasta course. I simmered it in the same water as the gnocchi. I did not put it in a strainer, but used tongs to remove the pasta from the water. This allowed some of the starchy water to come with it. I served it with a couple dollops of the sauce and a heavy sprinkle of grated parm.

The fettuccini was light and really carried the flavor of the tomato sauce. Really fantastic.

Finally, we were ready for the last course and I had actually saved the best for last. I simmered the ravioli in the same pasta water until they started to float. I served them with both the tomato sauce and a bit of grated parm. Instead of the ravioli being a vehicle for the sauce, like the fettuccini, the ravioli was definitely the star of this course. The creamy, garlicky filling was untouchable. I only wish I hadn’t been so full, so I could have eaten more. We will have leftovers for weeks.

I am not going to lie, although the recipes were fairly simple, it was a long day. Plus, with all the pasta in my stomach, I could barely stand. I threw the remaining dishes in the sink and was ready for a long hibernation. Too bad I had to go to work the next day.

Next time, I may just try one pasta at a time. My wife will undoubtedly appreciate that too. She is probably going to be finding little bits of flour in random places around the kitchen throughout 2012.

Ciao!  I hope you enjoy some pasta in the coming year. Happy New Year Everyone!!