Semolina Pasta

It all came together so perfectly. I had all the requisite ingredients, the inspiration struck at the opportune moment and there I was, breaking out the pasta machine. For our anniversary, my thoughtful and considerate husband decided to take me on an outing in search of local produce, meat and eggs. Schramm's farm store had baskets of huge, ripe tomatoes at their peak of flavor for about $3.00. Each basket had 6 or 7 soft-ball sized tomatoes and at that price, I couldn't NOT buy one. On the way home, I realized that there were already two quarts of tomatoes from our garden in the freezer. The tomatoes I just bought would need to be processed quickly and I had the whole weekend to make it happen. As my thoughts turned to recipes, I remembered the bag of semolina flour I'd bought a few weeks earlier. There it was, the moment of inspiration. I think I actually heard a little "ding" in my head when the idea of making semolina pasta with homemade tomato sauce hit me. Don't you just love it when that happens?

There's really no comparison between your own fresh pasta and what comes out of a cardboard box.  They're almost two different food items. Mind you, I'm not knocking dry pasta here, its a pantry staple and something I use frequently. But when you want to go that extra mile, making your own fresh pasta is not as difficult as you think and it never fails to impress. Most pasta is made either with all-purpose flour, super fine 00 flour or semolina  flour and each imparts its own unique taste and texture. 00 flour is very fine and powdery, which gives the pasta dough a smooth surface and the finished product is fluffy and light when cooked. Semolina has a courser texture than flour, which results in more toothsome pasta, and the slightly grainy surface allows it to hold the sauce nicely, just like ridges on certain types of dried pasta. I found recipes that used straight semolina flour and some that mixed it with regular all-purpose flour and since this was my first time using semolina, I decided to use a mix of the two.

SEMOLINA PASTA

1 cup semolina flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp water

Pasta dough can be made easily in the food processor, but if you don't have one you can mix this dough in a bowl. Measure the two flours and salt into a large bowl and mix them together. If you're using the food processor, blitz the dry ingredients a couple times just to mix them. Crack the eggs into a glass jar and add the water and olive oil, put the lid on it and shake it to blend well. With the processor running, drizzle the egg mixture in until it forms a ball, then turn it out to knead it. If you're using the bowl, just mix everything together until it forms a ball, then turn it out onto the counter and knead it until its smooth and slightly springy, which should take about 5 minutes. If the dough is too wet and sticky, knead small bits of flour in as you go until the dough no longer sticks to the surface. When its smooth and uniform, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for about half an hour to rest.

Of course, the pasta dough was the last thing I did that weekend. Making tomato sauce from scratch is not terribly difficult and it tastes infinitely better than anything you get out of a can or jar. The previous day, I turned 7 gigantic tomatoes into deeply flavored sauce using the basic process and recipe here on this blog, adding fresh mushrooms instead of dried. The sauce cooked for about three hours and while it was on the stove, I kept it covered loosely with a piece of aluminum foil. The foil allows steam to escape as the sauce reduces but keeps it from splattering all over the kitchen. Trust me, this technique will save you from cleaning tomato sauce off of the ceiling. I learned the hard way. Tomato sauce always tastes better after it sits in the fridge. This pot of sauce sat overnight and was all ready to go the next day when I started rolling that pasta.

 I took the dough out of the fridge and let it sit for about 10 minutes before rolling it. Now, a pasta machine is not necessary here, the dough can be rolled out with a rolling pin, but it needs to be really thin and since I have a pasta machine, I used it. This pasta had an interesting cornmeal-like texture, but it rolled out nicely and when it was thin enough to just barely see through, I cut it into thick ribbons, tossed them in a little flour and set them on a kitchen towel while I brought a big pot of liberally salted water to a boil. I just happened to have a small zucchini sitting in the fridge, so I cut it into small chunks and sauteed them in a skillet, then poured some of my tomato sauce in and let that heat up over low heat.

Once the water was boiling vigorously, I dropped in the pasta and gave it a stir. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, it only take about a minute, and when it was al dente I pulled it out with tongs and dropped it right into the sauce, adding a ladle full of pasta water to keep the sauce loose. I let the pasta continue to cook in the sauce and absorb the flavors for a couple minutes before serving. A healthy grating of Parmesan cheese and a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil brought  this bowl of handmade pasta to perfection. The chewiness of this pasta was quite pleasant and I was happy with the results. Plus, no cans, jars or cardboard boxes were harmed in the making of this dinner. All homemade, its the way to eat.