For my first proper post, I'm going to combine a couple of
recipes, the first to make your own pasta, and secondly to make a sauce to go
with it. Puttanesca is an intense, tangy, tomato-based sauce, traditionally
combining olives, capers and garlic. Over the years this has evolved a little
in my house, with the addition of anchovy, chilli, pancetta and a splash of
balsamic vinegar, to create a luscious, dark sauce. Sweet, salty, rich and with
a little bite from the chilli, it is perfect for the dark winter nights.
Firstly though, the pasta. Making spaghetti, linguine or any of
the long pasta varieties, is best done using a pasta machine. And by best done,
I really mean it is very difficult to do without. The pasta dough has to be
rolled so thin that to do it by hand would be almost impossible (although I
imagine there's an Italian nonna or two who would disagree). It certainly makes
it much more achievable in the home kitchen, and if you think you'd enjoy
making your own pasta, they are certainly a good buy (you can pick them up for
around £20-40
online).
Pasta dough is best made using '00' flour, which can be bought in
any larger supermarket, or at specialist food delis, if you're lucky enough to
have one close by. It differs from normal flour by being incredibly finely
ground, allowing you to make very smooth dough, perfect for pasta (as well as
pizza, which I'll definitely cover another time).
As a guide, for every 100g of '00' flour, you want to use half
the weight of egg, so 50g. I know eggs don't come in weights, but it really is
the best way for me to tell you. I could tell you one egg, but eggs can vary so
much in size. However, if you weigh a single egg for example, and you find it
weighs say 40g, and you don't want to waste another, then you can top it up to
50g with water. The only other ingredient is salt. I've seen recipes that add
olive oil, but I've always found it can make the dough tight and unworkable.
Of course, not everyone has, or wants, a pasta maker, and so if
you don't, obviously just cook up some pasta to go with the sauce! I find long
pasta works best with this sauce (my personal favourite is linguine), but
whatever you have in the cupboard will go just fine.
Pasta Dough - Serves 2
100g '00' pasta flour
50g eggs
Pinch salt
If you're making the pasta by hand, then weigh out the flour into
a large bowl, add a pinch of salt and then add the egg, slowly bringing the
mixture together with your fingers until it forms a dough. Empty it out onto a
floured surface and then knead it for 5-10mins until it is soft and springy to
touch (it's important not to skip the kneading! It develops the gluten in the
flour and basically means the pasta will be edible once it's cooked).
Once kneaded, form into a ball and then wrap tightly in cling
film and allow to rest in the fridge. Ideally leave it for 30mins to an hour.
While it is resting, set up your pasta machine. It will need to
be clamped to the work surface (follow the instructions you get with it, but
this will stop it moving while you are rolling). Dust the area around the
machine with flour as well, to stop the pasta sticking as you roll it. The
machine should be set at its widest setting (again, follow your instructions).
Once the pasta is rested, unwrap it and place onto the floured
surface. You'll need to roll it out manually into a roughly rectangle shape in
order to begin to feed it into the machine. Once this is done, carefully place
one end into the pasta machine and begin to roll it through. I roll my dough
twice through each thickness setting, getting down to a very thin sheet, before
folding in half again and again to get back to a small rectangle of dough,
turning it 90 degrees and feeding it back through the machine on each setting
once more. This reduces your waste, as when your first roll, you'll get
slightly raggedy edges, which you won’t want to use if you're trying to
impress someone.
Doing it this way might seem long, but actually it doesn't take
any longer than maybe 10 minutes in total to roll it, you get great pasta, and it
can be quite therapeutic, just take your time and make sure it turns out well.
It may take a few attempts before you get it just right, but people are really
impressed by homemade pasta, and once you've mastered this you'll also be able
to use the same basic technique to make ravioli and tortellini.
Once you have a long sheet, attach whichever cutter you want onto
the pasta maker (most come with spaghetti and tagliatelle cutters as a minimum)
and then run the pasta through the cutter in the same way to create your shards
of gold. You should cut your pasta as soon as it is rolled, as it dries very
quickly. If you need to wait any length of time, either try not to roll it out,
or cover it with a damp cloth. Once cut, it can be hung over a wooden spoon handle
or whatever you have available and allowed to dry for a few minutes before
cooking. Fresh pasta cooks in a matter of minutes. A large pot of boiling
water, with a good pinch of salt (my Italian food bible, The Silver Spoon, recommends 10g of salt per litre
of water) and the pasta will cook in around 2-3 minutes. Always be sure to
taste it, pinch a little off with your hand - it should be cooked through but
still have a firmness to it ('al dente').
Puttanesca Sauce
100g pancetta (or 1 box of cubetti de pancetta, which most
supermarkets stock and is what I use)
2 cloves garlic
1 red chilli
4 anchovies
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
15-20 pitted olives (black or kalamata work best)
2-3 tbsp capers
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Bunch of flat leaf parsley
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Place a large frying pan onto a medium heat. Once up to
temperature, add the pancetta to the pan and fry for 4-5 minutes until golden.
The pancetta will give up some of its delicious fat (don't throw this away!).
Using a slotted spoon, remove the pancetta and place in a bowl.
Finely slice the anchovies and chilli, then place into the pan
and allow to cook for a few minutes in the pancetta oil. If you have anchovies
stored in oil, then add a little of the anchovy oil into the pan first as well,
for an extra punch of flavour. The anchovies should begin to almost melt in the
oil - if they look like they are starting to brown, lower the heat.
Finely slice (or grate on a microplane grater if you have one)
the garlic and add to the pan for just a minute or two - don't allow to brown
otherwise the garlic will taste bitter.
Tip in the chopped tomatoes, olives, capers and a splash of
balsamic vinegar, then turn the heat down and allow the sauce to simmer gently
for 10-15 minutes, to allow the flavours to come together. (If you have a stick
blender, sometimes it can be a good idea to blitz the tomatoes for a few
seconds before adding. If you're using the supermarket own brand or value brand
tomatoes, they can have quite chunky pieces of tomato in, and it works better
if they are blended down. My stick blender fits straight into a standard size
tin, so I don't have to wash another bowl!)
The sauce is ready when it has thickened ever so slightly, at
which point you can add the pancetta back in, add the finely chopped parsley,
check and adjust the seasoning, and then serve with the pasta.
Serve your pasta however you want obviously, but traditionally,
the pasta is always mixed with the sauce before being served, rather than
having the sauce on top of the pasta. It’s how I like to do it and it means the
pasta gets beautifully coated with all of the sauce before serving.
Once your sauce is ready you can cook the pasta, that's how
little time the pasta takes. Drain the pasta (but first reserve a little of the
pasta water) and add into the pan of sauce. Mix or toss around in the pan, and
if the mixture looks a little dry for any reason, add a little of the pasta
water to loosen.
I'm pretty confident you'll love this sauce, but play around with
it. Add in some other ingredients that take your fancy or take out anything you
don't like. That’s how I cook.
Happy cooking.
