Fettucini with Asparagus and Fresh Goat Cheese

To make the fresh egg pasta all you need is 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 3 large eggs, beaten. Pulse the flour with a metal blade in a food processor to distribute and aerate; then add the eggs and process until the dough forms into a ball, about 30 seconds. Turn the dough ball out onto a dry work surface and knead until smooth (1-2 minutes). Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for at least 15 minutes up to 2 hours. Then use a pasta machine to roll out the dough and cut (per your pasta machine instructions).

Voila!
To prepare for the sauce, steam 1 pound of 1-inch asparagus pieces until just tender (about 2 min). Set aside. Then place 3 ounces of fresh goat cheese (crumbled), 1/4 cup heavy cream, and 1 clove of minced garlic into a small bowl and combine. Chop about 2 Tbsp of fresh mint leaves. Meanwhile, bring about 4 quarts of water to a boil with a Tbsp of salt and cook your pasta until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water; drain the pasta and transfer it back to the pot. Stir in the asparagus, goat cheese mixture, and mint; and use the reserved cooking water to moisten as necessary. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Pasta with Vodka Sauce

I wish I could make this recipe here at school, but since we're not allowed to have alcohol in the dorms I think it would be a problem if I took out the very necessary handle of vodka in the community kitchen... until I have my own kitchen I have to settle for jarred vodka sauce.... Even though I can't enjoy it I figured I should still share it with you so here it goes......

I got the structure of this recipe from a friend’s mom and since then I have altered it just a little bit from her original, but needless to say I think it’s a great recipe. It makes enough for about eight people.

2 lbs pasta (penne or rigatoni)

1 ½ sticks of butter unsalted

½ cup of vodka

2 cups of light cream

3 cups of marinara sauce

Small Can of Tomato Paste

3/4 cup ofgrated Locatelli/Ramano/Pecorino cheese

Some black pepper (to taste)

Optional: 1/4lbsProsciutto Chopped, Parsley (to taste), ½ cup of Peas, Shrimp or Chicken

Set a big pot of water aside so it will begin to boil.

If using prosciutto sauté it and the tomato paste in a large skillet with some of the butter once sautéed add the remaining butter until melted. If not using prosciutto simply melt the butter and tomato paste in the large skillet.

Then add the vodka to the butter and let it simmer for at least ten minutes so the alcohol will burn off. You’ll know if it is ready because the air above the skillet won’t smell of vodka anymore. (To burn off the alcohol faster carefully using a match to light the alcohol on fire. The fire will burn off fast and on its own).

Put the pasta into the boiling water and then add the other ingredients to the vodka/butter mixture. Let cook for at least 10 minutes or until the pasta is ready.

Marinara Sauce

This is a family recipe, I used to watch my mother make it and she would watch her mother make it. For the most part we actually add many of the ingredients to taste and not with actual amounts. I approximated the quantities to make it easier to follow. With these quantities it makes enough sauce for about eight people.

2lbs pasta (penne or rigatoni)

1 white onion chopped

2 cans of chopped tomatoes (preferably Luigi Vitelli or Progresso brand) (each 28oz)

2 garlic cloves diced

Basil Leaves (Dried)

2 Whole Bay Leaves (Dried)

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Optional: 2 Carrots chopped

In a skillet sauté the onion, salt, garlic, and a good amount of olive oil. Cook until the onions are translucent (just before they begin to brown). Meanwhile put the cans of chopped tomatoes into a big pot with the basil leaves, bay leaves, carrots, and pepper. Make sure to put a generous amount of basil leaves and pour some olive oil directly into the sauce.

Once the tomato mixture is warm add the sautéed things and cook stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes.

Sorry for the lack of pictures…. My camera’s battery wasn’t charged when I made this yesterday, opps. I’ll post pictures next time I make it. 

Tortellini

Inspired by Chinese New Year this week, I read a description of my Chinese Zodiac sign, the horse. The description claimed that those born under the sign of the horse are "good with their hands." My first reaction was one of disbelief, as I don't see myself as one who is terribly crafty or visually artistic, and am not usually enamored with creations born of my own hands. But then I got to thinking, well I *did* make these pretty little tortellini recently!

I was feeling slightly more inspired than usual on that day, and following the instructions in Giuliano Bugialli's book On Pasta, I think I succeeded in making some pretty photo-worthy little packages!

I do confess that these were actually not so hard once I got the hang of it. These little beauties can be filled with any pasta filling you desire. In my case I used a ricotta and freshly chopped herb filling.

Here's how you do it:

First you will need to make sure you have a round cutter for the task so that you can make your pasta into perfect, uniformly sized circles. I use these, very useful for all kinds of kitchen prep, even things so mundanely clever as making donut-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids ;)

For this recipe I chose a cutter 7 centimeters in diameter (that's about 2.75 inches).

Prepare your filling, then mix up a batch of pasta dough. I use 3 eggs per 2 cups of all-purpose flour for 1 lb of pasta. Roll the pasta out to the thinnest setting using your pasta machine.

Cut out as many 7 cm. circles as you can, then place a small dollop of filling in the center of each circle. Moisten the edges using beaten egg whites, then fold the circle *almost* in half, allowing just a small border on one side that sticks out a little past the rest. Then, wrap this half-circle around your finger and press the corners together with your thumb until they stick. Remove the little tortellino, give him a flip so that the top edge curls outward, and presto!

Good luck! It takes just a little practice, but once you get the hang of it you'll see, it's not so hard and really kind of fun!

Italian Nostalgia

When my beautiful sister, Mary, and I were in Italy, we fell in love with a Siena specialty: thick, glutinous noodles called Pici. We also discovered semifreddo; a wonderful "half-frozen" mousse-like custard.

I recreated Cacio E Pepe (Cheese & Pepper) using a variation of the recipe from the linked website, but used the pici noodles that I brought back with me instead of spaghetti noodles.


To accompany, we enjoyed a salad of organic baby arugula, radicchio, Roma tomatoes, crisp celery, walnut halves, quality olive oil, and aged balsamic vinegar.


A decadent lemon and amaretti semifreddo topped with raspberry coulis was just the ticket for dessert. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...


All of the above dishes were quite easy to put together, but tasted extraordinary.

Buonissimo!

Pasta di Carciofi

To ring in the spring season, I decided to make an artichoke pasta. I found the recipe in Giuliano Bugialli's book On Pasta.

I was so proud of myself for finally cleaning artichokes without hacking them up into unrecognizable bits and pieces... I started with 3 large artichokes, which were cleaned, then soaked in ample cold water with lemon halves squeezed and dropped into the bowl.

30 minutes later, the artichokes were cut into 8ths and sauteed for 5 minutes along with the chopped leaves of 15 large Italian parsley sprigs, 3 cloves of chopped garlic, and 1/4 cup olive oil.

I added 1 cup dry white wine, and cooked the artichokes over high heat until the wine evaporated, then added salt and pepper, covered the casserole, and continued to cook the artichokes until they were tender.

The artichokes were pureed in a food mill, then made into a dough using 5 1/2 cups flour, 3 extra-large eggs, and salt and pepper to taste.

To prepare the pasta, I rolled the dough through a pasta machine to make sheets, then cut the sheets into tagliatelle using an attachment.

To finish, the pasta was boiled for about 3 minutes, then tossed with a butter and sage sauce. It was soooo yummy!

The re-telling of this recipe was somewhat abridged. For the full version I recommend you purchase Bugialli's book. It's a great resource!

Golden-Fried Pumpkin Purses

Here is a seasonal recipe from Alain Ducasse in his Flavors of France cookbook. It is essentially a fried ravioli stuffed with pumpkin, leeks, rice and Parmesan cheese, that apparently comes from Monaco where the locals call them "Uncle Johns", or "barbajuans".

The first step is to roast a pumpkin in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half. Quarter your pumpkin, place the pieces skin-side-down on a baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil.

Meanwhile, make the pasta:

Mix together:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup ice-cold water

Knead the dough for a minute, form into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Next, begin to make the filling:

Boil 1/2 cup Arborio rice for 10 minutes with 1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt in 1 1/2 cups water.

Drain the rice and set aside.

Then mince the white and tender green parts of 4 slim leeks, and saute them in a skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil for about 4 minutes.

Once the pumpkin has cooked, remove the skin and mash it til smooth in a large bowl.

Mix in:

the cooked rice

the sauteed leeks

2 large eggs

3/4 cup (6 oz) Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

(I forgot to take a photo of the mixture all together, but here is the pumpkin; you'll see the filling below as it is assembled with the pasta.)

Roll the pasta dough out into long sheets.

Spoon 20 walnut-sized scoops of filling along the bottom half of each pasta sheet, then fold the top half over to cover the mounds.

Press the edges together around each mound, then cut into ravioli shapes:

Heat 6 cups of peanut oil to 325-350 degrees F.

Fry the ravioli, about 6 at a time, until golden.

Transfer to paper towels to drain, and salt immediately with a high quality sea salt.

Serve hot as an appetizer.

Pumpkin and Basil Lasagne

Tis the season for pumpkin! Here's the recipe for the delicious seasonal lasagna that we made tonight...
1.5 lbs pumpkin
2 Tbsp olive oil
16 oz ricotta cheese
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
3/4 cup fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 oz Parmesan, grated
4 oz fresh lasagna sheets
6 oz grated mozzarella cheese


Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Cut the pumpkin into thin slices and arrange in a single layer on the tray. Brush with oil and cook for 1 hour, or until softened, turning halfway through cooking.


Place the ricotta, pine nuts, basil, garlic, and Parmesan in a bowl and mix with wooden spoon.

Brush a square 8 inch ovenproof dish with oil. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. Arrange one third of the pasta sheets over the base of the dish and spread with the ricotta mixture. Top with half of the remaining lasagna sheets.

Arrange the pumpkin evenly over the pasta wtih as few gaps as possible. Season with salt and cracked black pepper and top with the final layer of mozzarella.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cheese is golden. Leave for 10 minutes, then cut into squares.

Braised Rabbit with Fresh Pasta

I made an impulse purchase of fresh rabbit yesterday and then came home and didn't know what I was going to do with it... so I searched for a recipe and thought this one was appealing (source, Gourmet May 2003). It calls for braising rabbit in a red wine and tomato sauce scented with cinnamon and orange.

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Then, using a cleaver, cut the rabbit into about 6 individual serving pieces. Make sure to remove the kidneys, heart and liver. Season the pieces with salt and pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in an oven-safe casserole, then brown the pieces of rabbit.

Remove the rabbit and set aside.

Add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil to the pot, then stir in 2 sliced onions, 2 minced garlic cloves, a long strip of orange zest, 1 cinnamon stick and 2 bay leaves. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes.

Add half a cup of dry red wine, and reduce for about 2 minutes.

Add 2 cups chopped canned tomato and 1/2 cup water.

Add the rabbit back to the casserole and nestle it into the sauce, covering it as well as possible.

Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook at 350 degrees for one hour, turning the rabbit after 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, ask your sous-chef to whip up a batch of homemade egg noodles.

Serve the rabbit and sauce over the boiled noodles with a bit of finishing salt.

(I forgot the parsley :( Next time!)

Ravioli

About 8 years ago or so I started making a chicken ravioli recipe from a Williams-Sonoma cookbook on pasta. It became one of my standards, something I could usually throw together from the ingredients I had on hand if I didn't know what else to make for dinner, and a darn good way to use up all those chicken breasts that I don't really want but have left over from making stock! I never deviated much from the recipe until the other day; I had a little wave of inspiration and decided I wanted to make the chicken ravioli with a bit of an earthy twist, so I added some bacon and black summer truffles and a bit of gruyere cheese along with the usual parmesan. It was a nice little change. The point in all of this is that ravioli is a very flexible dish, perfect for experimentation, and limited only to a cook's imagination!

Below I will show you the steps I took when I made ravioli this past Monday, but I invite you to not just duplicate it, but use it as a springboard for making your own unique creations. Just a month ago I used the filling from the Alain Ducasse stuffed summer vegetables for making a ravioli. You can use anything you desire just as long as it's not too wet I guess!

So, for my most recent creation, I first made a mirepoix as I usually do for my chicken ravioli, mixing equal parts chopped onion, carrot and celery and sauteeing in butter. Once you get this going, fill a big pot with water to get it boiling so it will be all ready for the ravioli.

Then I fried up some bacon

and then drained it on some paper towels to take away the grease.

I mixed the bacon in with the mirepoix, adding some chopped black truffles and chopped leftover roasted chicken, as well as some gruyere and parmesan cheeses.

All of this was chopped even more finely before mixing in a little beaten egg to bind it together.

Then I moved on to making my dough. Three eggs to two cups of all-purpose flour will make roughly one pound of pasta. Make a well in the center of your flour and crack the eggs into the well.

Mix together with a fork until the ingredients are well-blended.

Knead until smooth.

Roll long, thin sheets of dough through a pasta machine, taking the dough to the very last setting. I roll a quarter pound of dough at a time, so before I roll I cut my ball of dough into four equal pieces. Make sure your work surface is well-floured to prevent the dough from sticking. I do it all on a long sheet of parchment paper, which makes the eventual transfer to the pot of boiling water much easier!

Evenly space your filling, maybe a little over a tablespoon per "square", to begin forming your ravioli.

Next I dab a little water or egg white around the exposed dough, and then place a new sheet of dough on top, or sometimes I fill half the sheet and then fold the other half over. The water or egg white helps the top sheet of dough to adhere to the bottom sheet so that the ravioli will not separate during cooking.

Next the ravioli squares are cut using a pastry wheel.

Now they are ready to be boiled, which takes only a few minutes.

Serve topped with olive oil and grated parmesan cheese.

Buon appetito!