Technique: Egg Pasta Dough

I have home-cured bacon. How can I not make a carbonara sauce? But first, I need some pasta to put it on.

If you’ve never made egg pasta, it really isn’t as hard as you might think. It may not be as easy as Mario Batali makes it look on Iron Chef America, but it’s easy nonetheless.

The recipe is about as simple as it can get: one egg and ½ cup of flour per portion. I find it’s best to add a portion for the table, so if you have four for dinner, make five portions. That way you have an abundance.

You can make it in a bowl if you wish, or mix it with a mixer. I prefer to use a fork and just make a mess on the counter since the counter is going to get messy anyway.

The type of flour isn’t particularly critical. All purpose flour makes excellent pasta, as does any other flour. My preference is about 1 part semolina flour to 2 parts all purpose flour. Semolina flour makes pasta nicely toothy, but too much semolina is really hard to work unless you’re using a high-power pasta machine. Many dried pastas are made with 100% semolina flour.

To roll out the dough, I generally use the Kitchen Aid pasta roller set. Manual pasta machines work well, but you need to be able to clamp them to the table or counter or you’ll never be able to roll out your pasta. You can also roll out the dough by hand, but be prepared for some serious rolling time.

To get started, roughly measure the flour. Honestly, if you’re close, you’re just fine. No precision required here. Then add the eggs.

Start breaking up the eggs with a fork, and pull in flour from the edges until you realize that you aren’t making any more progress. Then clean off the fork and knead the dough by hand until it all comes together and you can form a nice ball of pasta dough. It’ll feel a bit rough. Cover that ball and let it rest for at least fifteen minutes. If you want to let it rest longer, use a damp towel to cover it.

When you’re ready to roll the dough, divide it into whatever number of finished portions you’re making. Using one portion at a time, roll it out.

The first pass through the pasta machine doesn’t seem to do much, but that’s okay. Just use flour liberally, keep folding the dough into thirds or quarters, and pass it through the rollers again.

After several passes through the rollers the texture and color will change. The dough becomes lighter in color and begins to feel silky. That’s when you start to adjust the setting on the roller to make the pasta thinner. With the Kitchen Aid attachment I generally get to 5. The same setting on a manual machine isn’t as thin, but it’s about as thin as I ever manage to get the dough.

The goal is to be able to see your hand through the dough. Sometimes it tears. If it does, just fold it up, back the roller up one setting, and continue rolling. If the pasta feels a bit sticky, dust it with flour.

When you’re satisfied that your dough is silky smooth and pale enough, it’s time to cut or shape it. The sheets you’re making are perfect for lasagna, ravioli, or even tortellini.

If you cut the pasta you’ll want to hang it somewhere to let it dry a bit. Those handy bars around counters that you thought were for towels are actually built-in pasta dryers! Be sure to clean and flour them liberally.

There are two things I’ve never seen explained in pasta recipes that can cause disasters. The first is that cut pasta can re-fuse itself if you don’t separate the strands rather quickly and flour them liberally; the resulting lump can be unpleasant. The second is that you really only want to let it dry a few minutes before moving it from the drying rack to a sheet pan. If you happily let the pasta hang on that handy rack it will shatter when you try to get it off and put it in the pot. Trust me, I’ve done it. The best flour for dusting the finished pasta is white rice flour, but all purpose flour works fine.

When you’re ready to cook the pasta, be prepared because it cooks much faster than dried pasta. You should salt the water to the point that it tastes like the Mediterranean Sea, but never use oil. Also, the water must be at a rolling boil and the pot must be large.

Add one portion of pasta to the water. As soon as it floats to the surface it’s done. Very thin pastas can cook in 30 seconds; the fettuccine made for this post took about 2 minutes. Use tongs to pull it out, or if you have one, cook it in a pasta basket.

Once you’ve made fresh egg pasta you’ll be reluctant to buy dried pasta again, and you’ll find that most “fresh” pasta you can buy just doesn’t measure up. There’s a bit of investment to get going, but you will not regret it once you’ve tasted your first homemade pasta.

Bacon

Mmm, bacon. I need some bacon for the BLT From Scratch Challenge, and I’ve never cured meat before, so it’s time to do a test.

For this first bacon I used the recipe and method in Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It. There are excellent recipes in Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie and The Paley’s Place Cookbook by Vitaly Paley. I’ll try both eventually.

For this recipe you’ll need to get some curing salt, sometimes called “pink salt,” Prague powder, or Insta-Cure #1. Don’t confuse this pink salt with actual pink salt from Australia or the Himalayan Plateau. Curing salt includes salt, sodium nitrate, sodium nitrite, and other ingredients, and is commonly dyed pink to make it visually different from regular salt.

Bacon Cure

½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
2 tablespoons kosher or sea salt
1 teaspoon curing salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Rinse, trim, and dry one hunk of pork belly of about 2½-3 pounds so that it’s rectangular. Then mix the cure ingredients together and rub it into the pork belly on both sides and along the edges.

Put the belly into a plastic bag if you have one big enough, or into a glass dish that will hold it and cover with plastic wrap. Put into the refrigerator to cure.

Every day for the next week, massage the juices that have accumulated back into the meat and turn it over. If it still feels squishy anywhere after a week, continue to cure for another day or two. Then you’re ready to smoke or roast the bacon.

For this first batch I roasted the bacon in a 200°F oven for about 2 hours until the interior temperature reached 150°F. Then I brushed genuine liquid hickory smoke on both sides and let it cool.

This was my first home-cured bacon and I will never buy bacon again. It’s just plain silly to buy that which can be made so easily and so very much better than store-bought.

Chicken Marsala

I had just finished breaking down a chicken for a photo session when I realized that it was time to eat. Fortunately, I had some chicken on the cutting board. A quick trip to the pantry for inspiration yielded sweet Marsala wine and veal demiglace. Sometimes you need to test recipes a lot to get them right. Other times you can just throw something together and it’s virtually perfect.

First, I prepped the chicken breasts. Bone-in and skin on is the juiciest way to prepare chicken breasts, but I’d deboned and removed the skin on the breasts for photos, so boneless, skinless chicken breasts seemed an excellent choice.  A quick rinse and pat dry with a paper towel, then salt and pepper (3 kinds) completed the prep.

I try never to start cooking without thinking things through and getting organized. While the chicken rested for a few minutes, I prepared my mise en place: slice some onion and crimini mushrooms; have a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter ready for the pan; pour a couple tablespoons of marsala into a prep bowl so I won’t be pouring alcohol from a bottle into a hot pan; make sure to have a tablespoon or so of demiglace ready. Okay, I’m set and I have a plan.

When I’m doing classes and demos, I hear lots of questions about food sticking to the pan. I rarely have that problem, and here’s why. First, I let the protein I’m cooking come to room temperature or as near to it as 30 minutes sitting out will do. Then I put some fat in the pan, usually olive oil, butter, or both. Then I preheat the pan–never preheat an empty pan, it can burn. The pan is ready when the oil shimmers or the butter foams. Only then do I put the protein into the pan.

Patience is a virtue when cooking. It’s really important to wait until the protein is ready before turning it. With most meats you’ll be able to see that the color has changed. Turn it once and let it finish. The small bits that cling to the pan are what makes sauces so flavorful.

When the chicken is almost done, lift it out and set it aside, covered. If you cover it, residual heat will finish the cooking. Add butter and maybe a bit of olive oil to the pan and sauté the mushrooms and onions. Be sure to add salt and pepper.

Push the mushrooms and onions to one side of the pan and deglaze with marsala. Be sure to keep your face back when pouring the wine into the hot pan just in case it ignites. Wine rarely ignites, but there’s really no point in taking the risk. Stir in the demiglace, mix everything nicely, and taste. It’s probably just fine, but taste it to make sure and adjust the seasoning, as necessary.

Plate the chicken, add a nice potato gratin and salad greens dressed with a simple balsamic vinaigrette, then spoon the marsala sauce over the chicken. And that’s how I paid the photographer. Thanks, Dad!

Candy Cap Gelato

Gelato is the truly ethereal version of ice cream that originates in Italy. Most important to a gelato is to start with a good base and to finish with low-speed churning that incorporates as little air as possible.

There are two standard gelato bases, white and yellow. The white base is made without eggs, the yellow with. Precise proportions vary from maker to maker, however. Here is the white gelato base I use.

White Gelato Base

1½ cup/12 oz./340g whole milk
1½ cup/12 oz./340g heavy cream
½ cup/3.5 oz./100g granulated sugar
½ cup/6 oz./170g honey or glucose

Mix together in a saucepan over medium-low heat and bring to 176-180°F/80-82°C, stirring frequently. Infuse with flavorings for 30 minutes, covered. Strain into a stainless steel bowl in an ice bath, then refrigerate overnight. Process in a gelato or ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Glucose tastes neutral, honey tastes like honey. If the flavoring you intend to use will be masked by or conflict with honey, use glucose.

If you aren’t familiar with candy cap mushrooms, read my first post on this mushroom. To make candy cap gelato, I used about ¼ ounce/7 grams dried candy cap mushrooms and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon to infuse my white gelato base made with honey.

On the palate, it begins with a slightly fungal honey nose, then the candy caps spring to life. This year there is a strong maple syrup-butterscotch blend. The taste of honey lingers on the palate. The deep, rich flavor of the candy caps really shines in gelato.

Basic Bread Dough

I had an interesting experience the other day. I’ve been enjoying Ratio, Michael Ruhlman’s newest book, and decided to try the basic bread ratio. He explains that the actual quantity of yeast isn’t all that important, and that less yeast just requires more time, with better-developed flavor as your reward for patience.

Well, I mixed up the dough. I didn’t worry about water temperature and I used a small quantity of yeast. After kneading, I covered the dough and waited for it to double in size. I checked it after an hour, and it looked like nothing had happened. Two hours, and it was the same result. I shrugged, figuring I’d gotten a batch of old yeast and went on about my day, intending to throw the dough away and start over.

Oops, I got distracted, forgot all about the dough, and didn’t rediscover the bowl sitting in a quiet corner until the next day. Hmm, it had finally doubled in size. And it smelled fine. So I punched it down, let it rest a bit, formed it into a boule, wrapped it in plastic, and put it in the refrigerator.

The next day I pulled the dough out of the refrigerator and let it proof for a couple of hours. Then I popped it into the oven with a pan of steaming water, baked it until done, and let it cool.

The crust color was a bit odd, but at this point it was just an experiment, so I didn’t much care. I cut into the boule and the structure of the bread was absolutely marvelous. Well, I decided I should taste it to see if it was alright. It certainly smelled fine.

Oh my, what a delight! It was, hands down, the best-tasting bread I’ve ever made: dense without being heavy; very tasty but without the overly yeasty flavor I’d usually achieved. And long-lasting as well. It didn’t dry out for the three days it lasted, and every bite of it continued to satisfy.

Was it a fluke? Only one way to find out. First, the recipe.

Basic Bread Dough
from Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

20 ounces bread flour
12 ounces water
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon active or instant yeast

Put the flour and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer. P0ur on the water–I also added 1½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and 1½ tablespoons honey–then sprinkle the yeast on top. If you have patience, let the yeast rehydrate for a couple of minutes. Mix with the paddle attachment for a few seconds until the dough comes together. Then fit the dough hook onto the mixer and knead for about ten minutes, until it’s smooth and elastic.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and cover it with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise until it doubles in size. When you push a finger into it, there should be some resistance and it shouldn’t spring back.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. It’s going to stick to the bowl a bit, so just keep pulling it away from the bowl until it’s out. Knead it a couple of times to expel excess gas and redistribute the yeast, then cover with a towel and let it rest about 10 minutes. Form it into the shape you wish–Ruhlman gives excellent instructions for different shapes–then cover with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

Pull the dough from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap, place it on a baking sheet, cover with a towel, and let it proof for 1½-2 hours. Near the end of proofing, preheat your oven to 450°F/230°C and place a cast iron skillet in the bottom of the oven. Set aside a cup of water to add to the pan at baking.

Put your bread in the oven, add a cup of water to the pan, and bake for 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 375°F/190°C and continue to bake another 45-50 minutes, until done. Let it cool on a rack as long as your patience will allow before cutting the first slice.

If you’ve never made bread before, try this method. It produces fantastic bread with minimal effort. And if you haven’t looked at Ratio yet, get a copy. You’ll be glad you did.