Aside from making the pasta from scratch, we made two kinds of sauces. The first was a basic marinara and the second was a Roman-style chicken sauce. All of the recipes we got from Giada de Laurentiis' cookbook Everyday Pasta. I don't use cookbooks very often, but I think I'll be using this one more frequently in the future.
We started out making the fettuccine. It's a really simple recipe, but just a little flour, eggs, salt, and olive oil is all you need! Once we mixed the dough up we started rolling it out into sheets with our pasta maker.
If you do this at home you will want to read the specific instructions for your pasta maker, but we had to roll the pasta through the machine several times, decreasing the thickness each time. We settled on the 2 setting on our machine as the perfect thickness, but depending on your machine there might be different measurements.
Once the sheets dried a little we ran them through the cutting portion of our pasta maker.
And that was it, until we were ready to cook it that is. The great thing about fresh pasta is that it only takes about two minutes to cook. We piled it on a plate and waited until right before dinner time.
Then it was sauce time. The marinara sauce really needs to cook for about an hour in order to thicken up and have all of the flavors meld together. What I really liked about this sauce was that it was full of vegetables like carrots and celery, but you didn't taste it. It's great for picky husbands that don't always like to eat their veggies.
We made a huge batch, and froze half of it. I love leftovers.
Then I made the Roman-style fettuccine with chicken. I was getting a little tired of cooking at this point but it was all worth it! This was a pretty simple dish to throw together. Cook some chicken, shred it, and then mix it up with a few other ingredients and serve over pasta. Seth and I both loved this dish and will definitely make it again. It would be a great pasta dish to make for company.
And now for the best part - the recipes!
Homemade Fettuccine
Makes 1 1/2 pounds of pasta
Ingredients
3 cups flour
4 large eggs
1 TB kosher salt
1 TB olive oil
What to Do:
You don't have to use a food processor for this, but if you have one it makes it pretty easy. Otherwise, just mix it by hand.
Beat the eggs, olive oil and salt in a small bowl. Mix with the flour in either the food processor or mixing bowl. Pulse the mixture until everything is evenly mixed and clumpy. It should hold together if you squeeze it.
Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and kneed it. The dough will be very tough and difficult to manipulate, but that's ok. Cover and let rest for about 30 minutes. This will keep the pasta from getting too tough.
At this point you can roll and cut using your pasta maker (or by hand, if you have a rolling pin and want a good arm workout!). When you are ready to cook, boil a large pot of salted water and then place the pasta in it. Cook for about two minutes, or until the pasta is al dente.
Marinara Sauce
Makes 2 quarts
Ingredients
1/2 cup olive oil
2 small onions, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2- 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
2 dried bay leaves
handful fresh basil (optional)
What to do
In a large pot, heat the oil on medium heat. Cook onions and garlic for about 10 minutes, then add the rest of the vegetables, along with the salt and pepper. When everything is tender, add the canned tomatoes, bay leaves, and basil. Let it simmer for at least an hour, or until it is your desired thickness. Remove the bay leaves and add extra salt and pepper to taste.
Roman Style Fettuccine with Chicken
4 servings
Ingredients
1/8 cup olive oil
3 chicken breasts
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
2 oz prosciutto, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1- 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 TB oregano
1/2 TB thyme
1/4 cup water or chicken stock
1 TB capers
chopped fresh parsley
What to do
Heat the oil in a saucepan, and cook the chicken with salt and pepper until browned on both sides. Remove and set aside.
Add bell peppers and prosciutto and cook for about 5 minutes. Then add garlic, tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, thyme and oregano. Cook and stir for a few minutes, then add water or chicken stock and place the chicken breasts back in the pan. Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink.
Remove and shred the chicken, then stir back in. Add capers and parsley.
Serve over fresh fettuccine and top with Parmesan cheese.
I'm so thrilled you came over to my last link party and posted your recipe. It's one of my very favorites and is featured in today's Future Expat Required Ingredient Link Party.
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll come back and add any spinach recipes you have to today's party.
http://futureexpat.com/2014/02/required-ingredient-spinach/