My partner, her colleague Rachel and I set out recently to make marinara after reading a recipe in the Times that reminded us of sauce we craved. Rachel, whose great-grandparents were born in Italy, volunteered to make pasta, which added to the fun. What follows are the steps we followed to create pasta with marinara that we loved.
Spoiler alert: Never rinse cooked pasta before adding sauce.
Rachel’s “Grandma Style” Pasta
INGREDIENTS
3 cups of flour
3 eggs and 3 egg yokes (6 eggs in total)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of ice water
PREPARATION
1. Pile the flour on a dry surface; hollow out a crater in the center so that the mound resembles a volcano.
2. Pour the eggs, yokes and olive oil into the crater. Be careful to preserve the wall of flour that surrounds the liquid.
3. Add ice water.
4. Mix the ingredients in the crater. Use your fingers to make a mixture of egg and olive oil.
5. Start to pull flour into the slurry slowly. “Have faith,” says Rachel. “It will turn into pasta.”
6. Combine the ingredients – flour and slurry – completely to form dough.
7. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let stand at least 30 minutes. “The longer the better,” Rachel says.
8. Cover the counter with a liberal dusting of flour.
9. Cut the dough into six pieces; each piece should be roughly the size of a deck of cards. Dust each piece with flour.
10. Roll each piece until paper-thin. “You should be able to see your hand through it,” Rachel says. Add flour liberally as you roll.
11. Cut each piece in half widthwise. The halves determine the length of the noodles.
12. Fold the noodle-length piece of dough in half, then in half again, before cutting (see photo below). Cut into ribbons about a quarter-inch wide.
13. Cover a baking sheet with wax paper. Cover the paper with flour.
14. Lift and unfurl the ribbons of pasta. Place the ribbons onto the sheet so that they form nests. “What I like about nests is that you can portion them,” Rachel says.
15. Cook immediately or leave uncovered overnight. Freeze the pasta if you don’t plan to cook it within a day.
COOKING
1. Fill 3/4 of a large pot with water. “The bigger the pot the better because you want to give pasta lots of space and lots of water,” says Rachel.
2. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Add salt liberally. “Salt like it’s the sea,” Rachel says.
3. Drop the nests of pasta into the boiling water. Stir pasta to avoid clumping. Boil for between 1 and 2 minutes, checking roughly every 30 seconds to determine the pasta’s firmness.
4. Pour about half of the marinara (prepared according to the recipe in the Times) from the skillet into a large preheated bowl.
5. Remove pasta from water and transfer directly into the marinara. Do not drain the pasta or place it into a colander. Toss the pasta together with the marinara until coated well, garnish with ribbons of fresh basil and serve.
Tutti a tavola a mangiare! (Everyone to the table to eat!)
