Pasta

I think it was figuring out how to make my own pasta that really turned me on to making my own food. Doing something which was once common place but now feels almost artisanel helped me to understand how much we take processed food for granted. We hardly question what is in our foods and often assume that even the most basic are either too difficult to make or too time consuming. We have given up making our own food. Food where we know what goes into making it and we decided what it tastes like. Making your own pasta is like reclaiming something you lost in a supermarket freezer.

My 4 year old daughter loves making pasta with me. She mixes the dough, kneads , rolls, stretches, cuts and dries it herself. When making your own pasta, the only thing  you need to invest in is a pasta maker. Get a hand cranked one, as you will want to be able to control the speed with which the pasta goes through the machine. If you get serious, you may also want to invest in a pasta drying rack. In the mean time you can use a tray and layer the pasta in between towels or just hang it on your dish rack. I have this and this, both of which I enjoy using.

Pasta (serves 4)

1.       400 gram all purpose flour

2.       4 eggs

3.       A pinch of salt.

Make a mound of flour and the pinch of salt on your counter top and make a little crater in the middle. Break all four eggs into the crater and using your fingers start mixing the flour and eggs. Try not to break the sides of the crater for as long as you can so that the egg doesn’t run all over the counter. Once it is all mixed, knead the dough for about 5 minutes, as you would knead bread, coming from above with the palm of your hand and using the weight of your body, then give the dough a quarter turn, fold and repeat. Ideally you get a rhythm where you are rocking back and forth. After 5 minutes your should hae a shiny, elastic dough. If it’s brittle add a little water, if it’s sticky add a little flour.

Wrap the dough in cling wrap and let it rest in the fridge for an hour.

Cut the dough into4 equal parts, spread some flour on your counter and using a rolling pin start flattening the dough. Try to get it the width the same as your pasta machine.

Sprinkle some flour on your pasta machine and your rolled dough. The dough should not stick at all. Starting at the widest position, feed the dough through the machine, pulling slightly at the end coming out to stretch it. Continue until position 6 or 7. If the pasta becomes too long to handle, cut it in half. Now put the flattened pasta through the cutter. When it’s about half way through, stick the handle of a wooden spoon under the pasta that came out so that you can easily place it somewhere to dry and not turn into a tangled ball. Place it on a towel on a tray placing an additional towel in between each layer or hang it somewhere to dry.

Fresh pasta takes much less time to cook than dry pasta. 3-4 minutes aree usually enough. You’ll want to start checking after 3 minutes.

Baked Tomatoes

The more time I spend preparing (and eating ) Mediterranean food, the more I am struck by how well simplicity works. No need for elaborate preparation, complicated sauces, although that is often fun too. Sometimes it’s enough to put a tomato in the oven and delight over the result .

4 Plum tomatoes

extra virgin olive oil

balsamic vinegar

sea salt

2 cloves of garlic

a couple of basil leaves

1. Preheat the oven to 100 Celsius. Cut the tomatoes in half and with a tea spoon scoop out the seeds and liquid. Place on a oven tray skin side down and sprinkle generously with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

2. Leave in the oven for 2 hours then let cool for about 5 minutes.

3. In the mean time finely chop the garlic and chop the basil into very thin strips.

4. Sprinkle salt, garlic and then basil leaves on the tomatoes and serve at room temperature.

Fennel Soup

They say that smells make some of our strongest memories. Perhaps because this is our most primeval sense. Think about it, a certain scent is often enough to remind you not only of a certain situation but also how you where feeling, what it tasted like, even what you where thinking.

My mother makes a fennel soup that always make me think of lazy, luxurious summer evenings. I remember the feeling of the grass in between my toes as we sit outside in the late evening sun. I can remember feeling slightly cold while the days heat evaporates out of me and I clearly remember the rich, velvety smooth taste of her soup and for some reason a glass of white wine.

I ran past some fennel in the supermarket while thinking of making something different than the usual soup. When I called my mother and she gave me the recipe, surprised, from her perspective fennel is a summer vegetable.

Ingredients:
Half a stick of butter
2 large bulbs of Fennel
a small potato (my addition)
1 liter of vegetable stock
some heavy cream

1.Trim the fennel bulbs but keep some of the thin green fronds. Half each bulb and slice coarsely.

2. Heat butter in a pan and add the fennel, stirring occasionally. Cook over a low flame for 10-15 minutes, until the fennel has softened. In the mean time peel and quarter the potato and boil in water until softened.

3. Add to the fennel along with the vegetable stock. With a hand blender puree the fennel and potato into the stock (you can leave the potato out if you like, I use it to thicken the soup).

4. Add a little cream for color and garnish with the chopped green fronds from the fennel.

5. Add salt and pepper to taste.