It’s very easy, and inexpensive to buy pasta at the store, which is why people do it so often, maybe too often, but every once in a while, when you want something specific, making a batch of your own can be fun, and rewarding. Besides, it’s kind of nice to get compliments for the sauce and noodles for a change.
By the way, don’t let the lack of a stand mixer with pasta attachments stop you from making this. For decades, I used a cheap, hand-cracked machine, which worked just fine. You can also go completely manual, and roll the dough into thin sheets, which after a little bit of drying, can be rolled up, and sliced into whatever size noodle you want.
Just be sure to use plenty of semolina, but that does work, and may produce the most satisfying results, imperfections and all. For the best texture, be sure to only cook your fresh pasta for just about a minute, before tossing it in your hot sauce.
If you dry your pasta, like I did with my twistaroni, you’ll need to give it a few extra minutes, or until it’s just tender, depending on the exact shape. Either way, fresh or dried, I really do hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!
Makes 2 large or 4 small portions Fresh Spinach Pasta:
I enjoy the taste and texture of a classic cream sauce, but what I don’t enjoy is that they tend to be very rich, and filling. I mean, come on, I’m trying to save room for the tiramisu.
However, by using ricotta cheese, and egg, and some boiling pasta water, we can make a sauce that seems every bit as creamy, and delicious, but will still allow us to walk away from the table under our own power.
I added some pesto to mine this time, but that could have been some sun-dried tomato paste, or roasted chilies, or caramelized mushroom, or diced-up, leftover grilled veggies, or…you get the idea. The technique is really the thing to focus on here, and once perfected, you’ll simply be left trying to figure out what else to add in, or on this lovely sauce.
As I mentioned in the video, I love to top this pasta with ricotta salata. If you’ve never had it before, it’s worth a try, and not just for this dish. Ricotta salata is a great summer cheese, since it’s perfect with things like tomato salads, and grilled peaches, just to name a few. So, keep that in mind, but in the meantime, I really hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 2 large or 4 small portions:
For the sauce base:
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
zest from 1 lemon
cayenne to taste
about 2/3 cup hot pasta water, plus more if needed
What started out as a tragic, waterlogged disaster of a sweet potato dumpling attempt, turned into a triumph we’re calling “pan-dumplings.” As usual, I did little to no research, so someone may have already invented pan-dumplings, but until I hear from you, I’ll be taking the credit.
I really liked being able to spoon the dough/batter directly into the pan, and cutting out the boiling step made these faster, and we have one less pot to wash. The bacon butter was very nice, but I can think of a dozen sauces that would work with these. If you’re doing it as a main course, anything goes, but as a side dish, I’d keep it simple, as we did here.
Since this was sort of an experiment, I wasn’t paying too close to the exact amounts, but the list below must be pretty close. You can play around with more or less flour, and/or cheese, and cook test dumplings until you lock it in. I wanted something with the taste of roasted sweet potatoes, but with more of a gnocchi-like texture, and I think this was pretty close, which is why I hope you give these pan-dumplings a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 2 large or 4 smaller portions:
12 ounces cooked sweet potato
1 large egg
1/4 cup goat cheese or cream cheese, plus more to garnish
1/2 cup *self -rising flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
freshly ground black pepper and cayenne to taste
sliced green onions to top
* To make your own SRF, for every cup of all-purpose flour combine 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon fine table salt.
A big bowl of spaghetti and meat sauce is one of my all-time favorite meals, and like most cooks, I make it a little different every time. The veggies change seasonally, and as far as the meat goes, sometimes it’s beef, or pork, or a combination, but for whatever reason, chicken is rarely considered. It’s usually only when I’m using up leftovers that I think to toss it with noodles. So, I almost forget how great this is when you dedicate a whole bird, and a few hours to the effort.
Other than requiring a little time, this recipe is dead simple, with the only major decision being how thick to make your sauce. I like something fairly light, I guess because it’s chicken, but if you do want something thicker, simply change the ratio of sauce to water when you start the recipe. You can also reduce it longer, but you knew that.
Just be sure to undercook your pasta by at least a minute here, since as you saw we’re going to finish it in hot sauce for a couple minutes at the end. This is a critical step, and allows all those flavors to get sucked up by the still hydrating spaghetti. This is also a great make-ahead meal, as you can prep your sauce one day, and then assemble the finished dish at a later date. Either way, I really do hope you give this chicken spaghetti a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for enough Chicken Spaghetti Sauce for between 1 and 1.5 pounds of pasta, depending on how “saucy” you want it:
1 large whole chicken (4 1/2 to 5 pounds), with bag inside cavity removed
1 jar (24-oz) marinara sauce (about 3 cups)
6 cups water or chicken broth
2 anchovy fillets
2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
red chili flakes to taste
To finish the dish, for each person:
4 ounces spaghetti, cooked, drained (not rinsed!)
enough chicken spaghetti sauce and to please you
more grated cheese
1 tablespoon cold butter
1/4 cup thinly sliced basil leaves
salt and hot pepper to taste
at least 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino cheese
I’m calling this Creole crab noodles recipe an “experiment,” but it didn’t really feel like one, since I was sure it was going to come out really well, which it did. Crab, and its old friends, the Holy Trinity, are a classic combo, and so it was no surprise they worked so well in an Asian-style, rice noodle dish.
If you can get fresh crab meat, by all means use that, but if not, pretty much every large grocery chain carries pasteurized crab in 8-ounce plastic tubs, which works perfectly fine for this. And if shellfish isn’t your thing, I’ve got some great news. This exact same dish can be made with literally any other other meat and/or vegetable.
You can also do this with your favorite pasta, but like I said in the video, there are few foods as addictive, and fun to eat as rice noodles, so I’d advise against it. Besides, you can finally have that gluten-free friend of yours over to make up for all those pizza-night invites. So, whether you make this for Mardi Gras or not, I really do hope you give it a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 2 large portions:
8 ounces crab meat
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 cup finely diced green onions, plus more for garnish
Apparently “Spätzle” translates to “little sparrows” in German, which makes a lot of sense when you consider their shape. What doesn’t make sense is why these micro-dumplings are also called “spaetzle.” Is it an alternate spelling? A different recipe? I’m hoping maybe some of our German foodwishers can clear this up.
Since my favorite German restaurant calls this stuff spätzle, that’s what I went with, and they are as easy to make, as they are hard to correctly pronounce. You only need a few ingredients, all of which you generally have on hand at all times, and they take just minutes to cook.
Once boiled, you can toss in butter like I did, or sauce them any way you’d sauce similarly shaped pasta. While wonderful served as-is, they make the perfect side dish to any large hunk of slowly braised meat. I paired mine with a pork shoulder stewed in hard cider, and it was amazing.
I thought I’d posted a video for that, but it was actually a cider-braised pork cheeks recipe I was thinking of, which would work perfectly here. So, I may have to do a braised pork shoulder after all. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll have little trouble figuring out what to serve yours with, and I really do hope you give this Spätzle recipe a try soon. Enjoy!
While it’s true this great side dish was invented in The City, to call it “the San Francisco treat” is a bit of a stretch. Like I said in the video, the next time I see this served around here, will be the first. I’d say a Mission-style burrito is the real San Francisco treat. Which reminds me, I seriously need to do that video.
Regardless, if you like the stuff from the box, I think you’ll enjoy this, although without all that MSG, it will not be quite as savory. I guess we’re sacrificing a little less flavor for something that’s more healthful, at least according to me. I’ve stopped trying to convince people that eating lots of MSG is not a great idea; but as far as how it impacts one’s diet and carb cravings, I think the research is clear. In fact, forget the research, and just ask yourself why so many people are addicted to fast food.
It’s certainly not the quality, or appearance. Having said that, if you do want to get closer to the original, simply use a cheap, powdered chicken base to make your broth. That stuff is loaded with MSG, among other things, and may be preferable to many of you drive-thru junkies, he said judgmentally. Either way, I really do hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients
3 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/2 cup finely diced onions
2/3 cup orzo pasta, or spaghetti broken into small pieces
This Rigatoni al Segreto recipe was the most closely guarded secret at Gino’s, one of New York City’s most famous Italian restaurants. It was as legendary, as their signature zebra-print wallpaper, and it won awards as the best red sauce in town.
While there were rumors that the secret ingredient was butter, no one really knew for sure. Once the restaurant closed in 2010, the recipe got out, and indeed, the butter legend was confirmed. Having never been there, I was excited to try it, but there was a big problem. Actually, a small problem. The recipe called for just a half-tablespoon of butter. Regulars knew this couldn’t be right, and so the recipe remained a mystery. Was it a typo? Was the old chef just trolling people?
We may never have known; had it not been for a documentary called, “The Missing Ingredient.” It’s a great film, but despite the name, it’s not about the butter. However, there’s a scene near the end, where the old chef makes this pasta for the filmmaker, and it shows how much butter goes in.
He made a much larger amount than the published version, but I concluded that it was a typo, and should’ve been half a stick of butter. So, not only am I recommending that you make this delicious sauce, but I also really hope you checkout the movie soon (it’s on Netflix). Enjoy!
Ingredients for four small or two large portions:
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onion
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste 2 or 3 cloves crushed garlic
a pinch of red pepper flakes (not in original recipe)
1 can (28 oz) San Marzano tomatoes, blended smooth 1/2 cup water to rinse out the can of tomatoes
Small handful of basil leaves, left whole or sliced just before adding
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (about 1.5 oz by weight), plus more to top
4 tablespoons butter, cubed
*8 ounces dry rigatoni
* This recipe probably makes enough sauce to coat 12 oz of pasta, but I like lots of sauce.
The only downside to this beautiful, spicy chicken noodles recipe is that I’m now going to get even more requests for Pad Thai that I usually do. Which is understandable, since no matter what recipe they’re used in, rice noodles are a proven crowd-pleaser.
By the way, I’ll post a recipe for pad Thai just as soon as my version comes out at least as well as the worst restaurant example in town. I’m not quite there yet. In the meantime, we can all practice our rice noodle soaking technique. As I mentioned, check the package of noodles you buy, as the time will vary depending on the size of the noodle.
I think this dish is perfect for using up leftover chicken, assuming it wasn’t horribly overcooked in the first place.If you did want to use raw chicken, go ahead and chop it up, and stir-fry it for a minute or two, before adding your vegetables. Either way, I really hope you give this spicy chicken noodles recipe a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 2 large or 4 small portions:
8 ounces dry rice noodles, soaked in 6 cups of boiling, lightly salted water (drain and rinse before using)
