# Pasta and Tomato Sauce



## A.J. Di Liberti (Jan 1, 2008)

With a little practice, you can make fresh pasta and a light tomato sauce from scratch in about an hour.

These recipes are very basic and can be _altered_ to _suit_ your taste.

Pasta;

100 gr. Flour
1 large Egg

Traditional method

Make a well in the center of the flour on your work surface (I use the dining table), break the egg into the well.

With a fork slowly work the flour into the egg, once the dough takes on some mass, use your hands to work the dough.

Push any excess flour aside for use while kneading the dough (if the dough is sticky add flour as needed).

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, and then set aside to rest 10 or 15 minutes more.

Flour the work surface and the rolling pin. Roll the dough out to the desired thickness then cut with a sharp knife into what ever shape and with you prefer.

Modern method,

Put dough attachment, flour and egg in a food processor, pulse until a dough ball is formed then run continuously for 5 minutes to knead.

Roll out and cut as before.

This takes about 30 minutes, a little longer the first few times.

Sauce;

2-4 T. Extra virgin olive oil
1 m. Red onion, diced
3 Garlic cloves, minced
2 T. Tomato paste
14 oz. Can Whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand
1 C. Wine
½ C. Fresh water
Fresh basil, chopped
Red chili flakes
Smoked paprika
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat. When the pan is hot add the oil wait for the oil to heat before adding the onion.

When the onion has started to brown stir in the tomato paste and garlic, let this cook about 10 minutes, you want to caramelize the sugars in the tomato paste.

Add the wine and deglaze the pan with a wooden spoon or spatula, the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan are where much of the flavor comes from.

Reduce the wine by about half.

Stir in the crushed tomatoes, water and basil. Add salt and pepper, paprika chili flakes to taste.

Bring to a boil then remove from heat and serve.

When serving with pasta;

Cook the pasta a minute short of al dente, drain the pasta and add straight to the sauté pan, cook the last minute in the sauce.

This takes about about 30 - 40 minutes.

© A. J. Di Liberti 2004


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## Andy (Aug 25, 2002)

A.J. Di Liberti:

My wife and I attended a cooking school in Siena, Italy in April and had a great time. They showed us how to make several different pastas, but I still think it's easier to buy it at Vons!!

Your sauce sounds like it's right out of Italy.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

I kind of agree with Andy on the pasta-making front!

It's worth noting that there's another good quick well-known alternative for a really good but lighter tomato-based sauce as roughly follows:

Blitz some sun-dried tomatoes,
Fry garlic and chilli in olive oil,
(Add prawns if you like)
Add the tomatoes,
Add wine,
Season,
Reduce.

Add in cooked pasta.

Stir in some rocket and lemon juice.

Garnish with lemon zest and more rocket.

Done!


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## 16128 (Feb 8, 2005)

The sauce sounds nice... I haven't added paprika before. I'll give that a try.

When I'm sick... flu or a bad cold, the only thing I want is homemade marinara with pasta, but a very light marinara - diced/crushed fresh Roma tomatoes cooked with garlic and fresh basil in olive oil, with salt and pepper.

Chicken soup is good, but this CURES PEOPLE.


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## StMatthias (Jan 14, 2008)

I'll try the sauce. 

In our one attempt to make homemade pasta, my friends and I somehow ended up with ravioli the size of index cards! It was a lot of fun, though.


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## rgrossicone (Jan 27, 2008)

Little trick with the sauce my grandmother taught me was to take a spoonful (tablespoon) and a teaspoon of butter...add it to the pot that you just emptied of pasta, then put the strained pasta back in and mix...gives the macaroni nice color and a bit of extra flavor.


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## A.J. Di Liberti (Jan 1, 2008)

rgrossicone said:


> Little trick with the sauce my grandmother taught me was to take a spoonful (tablespoon) and a teaspoon of butter...add it to the pot that you just emptied of pasta, then put the strained pasta back in and mix...gives the macaroni nice color and a bit of extra flavor.


My grandmother used oilive oil. It helps keep the pasta from sticking to itself as well.

Anthony


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## Spence (Feb 28, 2006)

Andy said:


> They showed us how to make several different pastas, but I still think it's easier to buy it at Vons!!


I've never seen any fresh pasta from a store that is as delicate as what you can make at home, it's just not durable enough when rolled very thin. There are some good Italian packaged brands that have a durable but thin noodle, although they are not as tender as fresh.

Fresh pasta takes a little work to get the process down, but if you love it I think it's worth it in the end. It really takes very little time or money, just a bit of effort. After that you can jazz it up with some simple but good ingredients to create a wide variety of things. I make it all the time.

Never tried the smoked paprika in a red sauce, I'll have to give that a try.

-spence


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## JerseyJohn (Oct 26, 2007)

I used to make my own pasta, and I got to the point where I could make it almost as fast as the store bought kind (fresh pasta only cooks for a minute or two, as opposed to 10 minutes or so for the dried kind). I should get back into the habit.


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## Spence (Feb 28, 2006)

Yes, you really should 

-spence


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## capitalart (Apr 2, 2007)

A.J. Di Liberti said:


> With a little practice, you can make fresh pasta and a light tomato sauce from scratch in about an hour.
> 
> These recipes are very basic and can be _altered_ to _suit_ your taste.
> 
> ...


Sounds delicious, will convince my wife to try it out for dinner this weekend.


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