Fresh Egg Pasta

making fresh pasta

I learned how to make fresh pasta in Italy.  Nearly every home cook I met used the same proportion, 100 gms of flour to 1 egg so that’s how I make my pasta.  Sometimes if I want it really rich I’ll add a couple of extra yolks.  I also make it the old fashioned way a la fontana, but for a newbie it’s much easier to simply mix it all together in a bowl.

I love rolling the dough by hand using a super long thin dowel but I also have a double wide manual rolling machine and a home sized electric rolling machine. I recommend buying the Atlas manual pasta machine.  You can also use it to make crackers and matzo.

Spring Vegetable Sauté

spring veggies

Don’t worry about making the sauté at the last minute.  It’s delicious at room temperature. If you have leftovers you can use them as a topping for bruschetta, in a frittata (for an Easter Brunch), on pasta, in a risotto (along with the broth you made from discards) or just throw what’s left into a salad.

As you cook each vegetable don’t add too much salt.  Add just enough to pull some water out of the veg to create a little steam.  You will adjust the salt of the completed dish once you’re done cooking all the veg and they are together in a bowl.  Now is the time to use that fantastic salt you bought and haven’t touched.

Master Recipe: Simple Shrimp Saute

shrimp saute

shrimp scampi style

Shrimp, scampi-style is the simplest most flavorful way to cook shrimp at home (aside from boiling).  And the beauty of the technique is that once you have shrimp cooked in butter or olive oil with garlic and a squeeze of lemon or lime you can used the finished dish in so many ways. Take a look at my post on SB Ridgeback Shrimp to see how I was able to transform one recipe into a week of special dinners.