Fresh Egg Pasta with Tomato, Basil and Garlic Sauce-Fresh Pasta Tutorial Included

Don't you just want to dive into that?

I think I have marinara sauce in my veins. There are few things in this world that can make me as weak in the knees as the combination of tomato, garlic, basil and a delicious Italian cheese. I grew up in New England, raised on the cooking and baking of some very skilled Italian aunts and a mother who makes a killer sauce and meatballs. My dear Italian Nona, bless her heart, seems to have passed all of the cooking genes down a few generations and failed to keep any for herself. I'm grateful for this marinara flowing through my veins and for the torrid love affair I have had for the past few years with learning the basics of Italian cooking.

I haven't been to Italy (keep in mind that my dream vacation is eating my way through Europe with my best friend), but I think culinary curing in the Boston/New York/New Jersey area is the second best thing. I have dreams of  melt-in-your-mouth fresh zeppole, made in front of you at the local Catholic Italian Church feast. I fantasize about perfectly pounded and fried chicken parmigiana, or pizza with a crust so thin that you can cook it in five minutes flat. Someday, I will go to my ancestral homeland and come back 30 pounds heavier, stuffed with mozzarella and polenta and San Marzano tomatoes and fresh pasta. For now, I will be as authentic as I can in my little kitchen in the Salt Lake Valley.

My mother is an angel, and for my birthday last month, sent me a hand-crank pasta machine, complete with a beautiful Cook's Illustrated pasta cookbook and ravioli mold. Aren't they beautiful? I love my husband, but if this pasta machine asked me to run away with it and live on a white, sandy beach, I might consider it.

I have been making fresh egg pasta for a few weeks, and am seriously in love. You can make the sauce for this recipe and put it over some store-bought, dried pasta, and it will still be delicious. But there is something magical about fresh egg pasta, and I promise, promise, promise, that you can do it at home. Having a pasta machine helps, but you can roll it out and cut it by hand. It does take some time, but you end up with a dish where the pasta itself is the star, and not just a vehicle for the sauce. Fresh egg pasta is delicious with a simple butter and parmigiana sauce, and fabulous with a homemade fettuccine. I wouldn't use it with a heavy marinara or bolognese, since it is delicate, but today's sauce will be light enough to work. Make the fresh egg pasta and experience something truly amazing. I'll post up the pasta dough recipe and some pictures of the process, but this sauce will be delicious and simple enough for you to whip up whenever you want something fresh and classic for your dinner.

For your dough, the recipe is very simple. Eggs and flour. Lots of internet recipes advocate salt and other additives, but this is really a perfect recipe. You can definitely experiment. I plan to make some spinach fettuccine next week. But for a straightforward, simple pasta, eggs and flour are all you need. This is the fifth time I have made this recipe, and it is consistently perfect.

Start with three eggs. Room temperature eggs are best. They blend more easily and are more pleasant to work with.

Crack them and beat them slightly with a small whisk. Set them aside.

Measure out two cups of flour. Spoon the flour in and level the cup off to ensure accuracy.

Put the flour in a food processor. Pulse two or three times to evenly distribute the flour and aerate it a bit. Yes, you will use the food processor to do most of the work. Purists may argue that you need to do this all by hand, but ten minutes of kneading to incorporate everything is rough, especially if you battle carpal tunnel issues like I do. Cook's Illustrated assures me that after rigorous testing, there is no difference between the food processor method and the hand kneading method. You will hand knead a little bit, but only for a minute of so.

Add the eggs to the work bowl of the food processor. I put mine in through the feeding tube thingy. We're very technical here. Feeding tube thingy. Yup. Plop them in.

Go ahead and pulse the mixture a few times. When the eggs and flour have incorporated together, it will probably look like this. Small little pea-sized balls. If this is the case, add a 1/2 teaspoon of water at a time, pulsing after each addition.

The pasta will pull together into a large mass, like this. Stop as soon as the mixture comes together. You don't want a sticky dough.

Flour the counter very lightly. Dump the dough out.

Hand knead the dough for about two minutes, until it is smooth and satiny. You may need to add a tiny bit of flour if the dough is sticky.

Place the dough on a clean kitchen towel. Wrap the dough, and set it aside to rest for at least twenty minutes, and for up to two hours.

The pasta machine is shown here. You crank the dough through the two large rollers in the front, and then switch the handle to one of the cutting rollers in the back. Alternately, you can roll it out with a rolling pin and cut it by hand.

When the dough has rested and relaxed a bit, pull it out and cut off a small slice (about 3/4 inch thick), and feed it through the smallest setting of a pasta machine (0).

Cook's Illustrated suggests rolling the dough through, then folding it in on itself, like an envelope, and rolling it through again on the lowest setting. Do this 4-5 times, until the dough is smooth and uniform. 

Here is the thickness knob.

It comes out like this after the first roll.

And here is the folding/envelope method. You will do this each time you roll it through at setting 0, until the dough is uniform.

Just like this. Five or six times, folding like an envelope each time.

Next, you will increase the thickness setting on the roller, rolling the dough through once more on each additional setting, up to setting 7. The dough should be thin, almost see-through. It will eventually look like this.

Switch the handle over to the cutting side of the machine. Roll the long strip through the fettuccine cutter, and lay your noodles on a pasta rack. In a non-fancy household, we use my stacking baking cooling racks. Dust the noodles with flour to prevent them from sticking together. They can sit out for a few hours, or be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days. You can see the cutting and rack-drying process here.

Roll out and cut the rest of the dough. It takes time, but it's easy and worth it! Also, you can roll them out with a rolling pin, as thin as you can, and hand cut with a sharp knife or pizza wheel. You get enough to serve 4 people with this recipe. 

Cooking the pasta is fast and simple. Your noodles will only take about 3 minutes to cook, so the sauce can be made as you are starting to boil the water. Fill a large saucepan 3/4 full of water and cover it. Bring to a full, rolling boil. When the water is boiling, add a teaspoon of salt to flavor the pasta. Add the noodles. When they float to the top in 2-3 minutes, they are done. They will look like this.

Drain them, and toss them with your chosen sauce. 

On to the sauce. Grab two containers of grape or cherry tomatoes. 

I used a combination of both. I recommend having two full containers of tomatoes. Wash and slice them in half.

Next, gather some cloves of garlic. Five or six will do nicely.

Chop the garlic into small pieces. It doesn't have to be minced. Just chopped well. Also chop 3-4 leaves of fresh basil.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large saute pan, using medium heat. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds until fragrant.

Add the tomatoes and basil. Stir to combine with the garlic.

Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The juices from the tomatoes will release, and the sauce will cook down. After five minutes, add a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar (to cut the acidity of the tomato) and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cover and cook for another two minutes. 

Toss your pasta, freshly made, or dried and cooked, with this sauce. Sprinkle with freshly grated parmigiana cheese. Serve family style on a large platter or in a large pasta bowl, and enjoy a delicious, fresh meal. We ate ours with a colorful spinach salad and fresh veggies.

Fresh Egg Pasta (From Cook's Illustrated Pasta Cookbook)

Ingredients
-3 eggs, beaten
-2 cups of flour

1. Crack eggs into a small bowl. Beat them.
2. Measure flour. Put in work bowl of food processor. Pulse twice to aerate flour.
3. Add eggs. Pulse until mixture comes together in a large mass. If the mixture is not combined and is crumbly, add a 1/2 teaspoon of water at a time, pulsing after each addition. As soon as the mixture comes together, turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter.
4. Knead the dough for 2 minutes, until it is smooth and satiny. Add a bit of flour if the dough is sticky.
5. Wrap dough in a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for 20 minutes-2 hours.
6. Follow the tutorial instructions above for rolling out the pasta dough with a hand-crank roller, or roll out with a rolling pin and cut noodles with a sharp knife.
7. Bring a large saucepan of water to a rolling boil. Add a teaspoon of salt. Add pasta. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the pasta floats to the top. Drain the noodles and toss with desired sauce.

Fresh Tomato, Basil and Garlic Sauce
Ingredients
-4 cups of grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced in half.
-Six cloves of fresh garlic, chopped
-1 tablespoon of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
-Four fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
-1/2 teaspoon of sugar
-1/2 teaspoon of salt
-Freshly grated parmigiana cheese

1. Wash and chop cherry tomatoes, garlic and basil. Set aside.
2. Heat extra-virgin olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add garlic. Saute 30 seconds until fragrant.
3. Add tomatoes and basil to the pan. Stir to combine. Cover and cook five minutes, allowing tomatoes to reduce. Stir occasionally.
4. Add sugar and salt. Stir, cover and cook 2 more minutes.
5. Pour over your pasta, freshly made or dried and cooked. Garnish with freshly grated parmigiana cheese.
6. Allow your taste buds to dance.