When I was a young reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I had a group of friends who liked to get together and cook elaborate meals. One was a wry and dashing architect I fancied I had a crush on, in no small part because he taught us all how to make tortellini from scratch. I never caught his eye, but when I caught my future husband's, he and I would drink wine and labor over circles of dough filled with ricotta and sausage. They usually didn't plop into boiling water until after midnight, but they were sublime. But then, you know, LIFE and all. Marriage, moves, children. I got too busy for anything as Old World and fussy as homemade pasta.
Now my kids are 13 and 17. I have summers off. And so I went to the back of my pantry and found my Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Machine, a surprisingly heavy, shockingly low-tech gadget that I have carefully packed and moved no less than seven times over two decades. But I have not used it in all that time!
Don't ask what inspired me. It did not appear to be the ideal moment. Our air-conditioning was out, for one thing. But the 13-year-old was bored and I had bought King Arthur Pasta Flour months ago and it had been staring at me accusingly every time I grabbed the regular flour. So yeah, YOLO, let's do this thing. So without further ado, I washed the dust off the machine, clamped it to my kitchen table, made the dough and went to work. I didn't give myself time to think about it.
I'll cut to the chase. It was FANTASTIC. So here is what I did:
I made the dough exactly according to the instructions on the back of the KA pasta flour bag. I made it in my KitchenAid mixer. It came together beautifully. I then put it on my floured marble pastry board and mushed it into a sloppy, half-inch thick rectangle. Wrapped it in plastic and left it for 30 minutes. Split it lengthwise and began cranking it through the machine at the widest setting. Ran to the basement and grabbed my IKEA laundry dryer. Grabbed a kid and made him crank while I laid the strips (yes I just skipped steps - either you have the pasta machine and know what happened or you don't but maybe you'll go buy one and then you will figure it out) on the rack. Dried for several hours. Dropped in boiling water. Two minutes, maybe three. Oh. My. Goodness.
Sauce you say? I divided the pasta onto two platters and for one, I just added lots of yummy salted butter, Maldon sea salt flakes, and tons of cracked pepper and parmesan. For the other, I made a version of Marcella Hazan's pasta sauce, featured on the NYT Cooking app.
olive oil
several cloves garlic, rough chopped
half a yellow onion
one large can of San Marzano tomatoes
4-6 tbsps butter
Cover the bottom of a medium saucepan with olive oil. Saute the garlic for a minute or so, just until it sizzles. Add the onion (As is! No need to chop it!), the tomatoes (I take scissors and just shred them up a bit right in the pot), and the butter. Stir and walk away. Simmer on low-medium. After an hour, maybe, or less, who cares, fish out the onion and toss it. Add salt and pepper, and, if you like, some oregano and red pepper flakes. Then, and here is where is gets sublime, add about one-fourth to half a pint of heavy cream. Really just enough to turn the sauce a dreamy pink. Mush those tomatoes some more. When you serve, just put it on top of the pasta; don't try to mix it in, since the fresh pasta is more fragile than store-bought. Decorate with fresh basil and serve with pepper, red pepper flakes, and parmesan on the side.
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