When family friend David Puckett came for dinner, he brought his pasta-making machine and cranked out fresh pasta for us! In Italy, restaurants often offer freshly made pasta, but it’s a little harder to get here, so you might have to learn to make your own. I’m including David’s recipe for pasta and my recipe for tomato sauce. It is sure to make you feel like you are in Italy.

Pasta

Ingredients:
  • 4 room temperature eggs
  • 2 ½ cups flour (“00” flour, semolina flour, all-purpose flour, or a blend)
  • 1 TBSP olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
Instructions:
  • Add all ingredients to the bowl of a food processor, fitted with the normal blade, and pulse for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture reaches a crumbly texture.
  • Remove the dough, form it into a ball with your hands, and place it on a lightly floured cutting board. Knead the dough for one or two minutes until it is smooth and elastic. If the dough seems too dry, add in an extra tablespoon or two of water.
  • Form the dough into a ball and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Use immediately or refrigerate for up to one day.
  • Roll out the pasta dough into your desired shape, either by hand or using a pasta maker. David rolled out the pasta and then ran it through his hand-crank pasta machine, creating linguini and angel hair pasta.
  • Next, he arranged the fettucine in a bird’s nest shape to dry while he hung the angel hair pasta on a drying tree.
  • Let the pasta dry for 20 minutes or so until it hardens.
  • Cook in a large pot of generously salted water until it is al dente, usually between 1-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of your pasta.
  • Drain and use immediately.

Tomato Sauce

I’m notoriously bad at recipes because I do “a bit of this” and a “bit of that”, so here are the basics.

Ingredients:
  • ¼ cup of olive oil and a couple of cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 8 cups of fresh or canned tomatoes, blanched, peeled, and chopped
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional if you like some spice)
  • 1-3 teaspoons of dried oregano or a quarter cup of fresh
  • 1 cup of chopped fresh basil
Instructions:
  • I always start my sauce by sautéing garlic in olive oil. Then I add the tomatoes, simmer for a couple of minutes, and then add the remaining ingredients and simmer until I get a sauce consistency.
  • You can always add fresh mushrooms or Italian sausage from Pasture at Marksbury Farm Market if you prefer your sauce with meat.
  • Like a good soup, I often prepare my sauce several hours or a day ahead of dinner to give it time to simmer and marry the flavor. Pour over the handmade pasta and top with some shaved Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!