Its 10:00am AEST ... and tonight is "Spaghetti" night. Today will be a "boring" day because the inlaw (by sisters marriage LOL no pics LOL) and parents will be over for dinner. They are born and bred Italians from the Naples region and are disgusted by western influence, they are very much old purists (they are in their 80's) so todays menu will be a true trial by fire.
Todays menu: This will be the easiest for anyone to follow to reproduce a near perfect "basic" italian meal better than anything you get from a supermarket and most restaurants. Pictures will be added as they are produced.
Fresh hand made fettuccine (made in the morning to "cure" during the day) - DONE
Fresh Ragu Napoletano (visited the tableland farms yesterday for fresh cuts of Veal and Pork)
Pasta: All ingredients MUST be at room temperature. Seriously this shit is easy.
Durum Flour (500g) + Extra flour for dusting/consistency
5x Eggs + 2 yolks (organic free range at minimum - mine came from the coop yesterday)
1x Tablespoon salt
1x Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (quality, dont skimp)
Mix together with your hands, stop being a fucking girl. If the dough is sticky add more flour, if the dough is too dry and wont combine add a tablespoon of water. Keep going till you have a well mixed and even consistency of dough. It shouldnt stick to your hands, but it should be "tactile" (i.e. not powdery dry). Place whole dough in bowl and cover with cling wrap and let rest for at least an hour.
Begin making Ragu in this time.
Once rested remove 100g portions and begin feeding through pasta machine. On its widest setting run the pasta through the lasagna roller (the basic roller) at least 10 times folding each time until it rolls through silky smooth and without any tearing, then begin thinning to its thinnest setting until you get a huge thin sheet of pasta. Slice into manageable lengths and feed through your preferred slicer (I am using fettuccine today) as the fettuccine comes out from the cutter using dexterity take the pasta away to hang somewhere to cure, make sure you separate each piece so they do not stick together. Repeat until all pasta is completed.
The completed fettuccine, unfortunately the dough was a little wetter than I anticipated, but the drying will help that. Meh so be it, we can't all be perfect.
Its ready to cook now, its been drying all day and is very brittle just the wind blowing against it knocked some pieces off, however its well worth the effort.
Ragu:
Using the "base" recipe from previous threads.
Soffritto
250g finely diced onion
1 whole clove garlic
Olive oil
Sauce
1Kg ground meat (in this case 500g minced veal, and 500g minced pork)
2Kg fresh tomato, peeled and chopped fine.
Herbs and spices to taste
Begin with the soffritto, sweat the onion and garlic off in the olive oil and reduce till it caramelizes.
The Sofftitto (with herbs - Oregano and Basil) note the brown on the bottom, this was about 2-3 mins before I added the meat, I wanted more of the caremelised flavour off the bottom - the brown stuff.
Next add the minced meat and brown completely - do not add any more oil yet, let the meat brown first. If the mix seems "dry" add a couple of dashes of olive oil to make the mix "glisten".
Now we have added the meat, notice no pink bits. I dont want to cook the meat off now, I just want to brown it and remove the pink colour.
Finally add the tomato and mix till well combined, put into an oven on a low heat (140C) and let simmer for as long as possible. Preferably a minimum 6 hours, however the longer the better.
Just before going in the oven the tomato is diced and added. Now, you will notice the skins on, thats actually on purpose, I am cooking for an old italian couple and the "Nonna" is very critical, its easier to add something easy to pick on (the tomato skins) than to make her work too hard to find something wrong ... this way she spots a problem, criticises it, and then enjoys the meal anyway without having to spend time trying to find something wrong with the meal (a trick I learned from my sister who has done a great deal of cooking for them)
Getting there (note the tomato has reduced, some skins are left - nice)
Prior to dishing:
Cook the pasta. Simple, being fresh it doesnt take as long as dried pasta, do it in small quantities, simply drop the fresh pasta into well salted and oiled rapidly boiling water. The pasta should sink below the surface. When its nearly cooked it will begin floating on the surface, wait a minute or two before breaking a small piece and tasting it for "Al Dente" this takes a little skill as fresh pasta is already soft so you need to make sure its cooked but not soggy. The whole process should not take any longer than 6 or so minutes. You MUST keep the water rapidly boiling so dont add too much pasta which makes the water temp drop too much.
Dish the pasta up, spoon over the Ragu and serve with some fresh shaved Parmesan cheese.
Highlights added through the day as events arise
Todays menu: This will be the easiest for anyone to follow to reproduce a near perfect "basic" italian meal better than anything you get from a supermarket and most restaurants. Pictures will be added as they are produced.
Fresh hand made fettuccine (made in the morning to "cure" during the day) - DONE
Fresh Ragu Napoletano (visited the tableland farms yesterday for fresh cuts of Veal and Pork)
Pasta: All ingredients MUST be at room temperature. Seriously this shit is easy.
Durum Flour (500g) + Extra flour for dusting/consistency
5x Eggs + 2 yolks (organic free range at minimum - mine came from the coop yesterday)
1x Tablespoon salt
1x Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (quality, dont skimp)
Mix together with your hands, stop being a fucking girl. If the dough is sticky add more flour, if the dough is too dry and wont combine add a tablespoon of water. Keep going till you have a well mixed and even consistency of dough. It shouldnt stick to your hands, but it should be "tactile" (i.e. not powdery dry). Place whole dough in bowl and cover with cling wrap and let rest for at least an hour.
Begin making Ragu in this time.
Once rested remove 100g portions and begin feeding through pasta machine. On its widest setting run the pasta through the lasagna roller (the basic roller) at least 10 times folding each time until it rolls through silky smooth and without any tearing, then begin thinning to its thinnest setting until you get a huge thin sheet of pasta. Slice into manageable lengths and feed through your preferred slicer (I am using fettuccine today) as the fettuccine comes out from the cutter using dexterity take the pasta away to hang somewhere to cure, make sure you separate each piece so they do not stick together. Repeat until all pasta is completed.
The completed fettuccine, unfortunately the dough was a little wetter than I anticipated, but the drying will help that. Meh so be it, we can't all be perfect.
Its ready to cook now, its been drying all day and is very brittle just the wind blowing against it knocked some pieces off, however its well worth the effort.
Ragu:
Using the "base" recipe from previous threads.
Soffritto
250g finely diced onion
1 whole clove garlic
Olive oil
Sauce
1Kg ground meat (in this case 500g minced veal, and 500g minced pork)
2Kg fresh tomato, peeled and chopped fine.
Herbs and spices to taste
Begin with the soffritto, sweat the onion and garlic off in the olive oil and reduce till it caramelizes.
The Sofftitto (with herbs - Oregano and Basil) note the brown on the bottom, this was about 2-3 mins before I added the meat, I wanted more of the caremelised flavour off the bottom - the brown stuff.
Next add the minced meat and brown completely - do not add any more oil yet, let the meat brown first. If the mix seems "dry" add a couple of dashes of olive oil to make the mix "glisten".
Now we have added the meat, notice no pink bits. I dont want to cook the meat off now, I just want to brown it and remove the pink colour.
Finally add the tomato and mix till well combined, put into an oven on a low heat (140C) and let simmer for as long as possible. Preferably a minimum 6 hours, however the longer the better.
Just before going in the oven the tomato is diced and added. Now, you will notice the skins on, thats actually on purpose, I am cooking for an old italian couple and the "Nonna" is very critical, its easier to add something easy to pick on (the tomato skins) than to make her work too hard to find something wrong ... this way she spots a problem, criticises it, and then enjoys the meal anyway without having to spend time trying to find something wrong with the meal (a trick I learned from my sister who has done a great deal of cooking for them)
Getting there (note the tomato has reduced, some skins are left - nice)
Prior to dishing:
Cook the pasta. Simple, being fresh it doesnt take as long as dried pasta, do it in small quantities, simply drop the fresh pasta into well salted and oiled rapidly boiling water. The pasta should sink below the surface. When its nearly cooked it will begin floating on the surface, wait a minute or two before breaking a small piece and tasting it for "Al Dente" this takes a little skill as fresh pasta is already soft so you need to make sure its cooked but not soggy. The whole process should not take any longer than 6 or so minutes. You MUST keep the water rapidly boiling so dont add too much pasta which makes the water temp drop too much.
Dish the pasta up, spoon over the Ragu and serve with some fresh shaved Parmesan cheese.
Highlights added through the day as events arise
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