JJB’s Ramblings

What do you do when you have some spare time on your hands?  Watch TV?  Organize your stamp collection?  Beat up people that OWN stamp collections?  All of that is well and good, but me, I prefer to toil away in the kitchen over a hot stove.  This past Saturday was no exception.  With eRock out of the house for the better part of the day and company joining us for dinner, I thought it would be nice to make something from scratch.  Something “easy”.  Something like pasta sauce.  I chose the recipe given out by my culinary hero Alton Brown (an illegitmate offfspring of Julia Child and Bill Nye the science guy*) in his Pantry Raid episode. 

Step one:  make sure you have all the ingredients.  If you don’t have them get them (unless you don’t care for them.  I omitted the capers.) Here is our full recipe listing with my comments: 

2 (28-ounce) cans whole, peeled tomatoes
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
2 ounces olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup white wine  (plus 16 to 32oz for your own consumption)… better just make sure you have a bottle.
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste 

In a sieve over a medium non-reactive saucepot, strain the tomatoes of their juice into the saucepot. Add the sherry vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes, oregano, and basil to the tomato juice. Stir and cook over high heat. Once bubbles begin to form on the surface, reduce to a simmer. Allow liquid to reduce by 1/2 or until liquid has thickened to a loose syrup consistency.   It should end up looking something like this. I let it boil just a bit too long but I do not think there was too much harm.Squeeze each tomato thoroughly to ensure most seeds are removed. Set the tomatoes aside.

Cut carrot, onion, and celery into uniform sizes and combine with olive oil and garlic in a non-reactive roasting pan over low heat.  Sweat the mirepoix until the carrots are tender and the onion becomes translucent, 15 to 20 minutes.  Just like this.

Add the tomatoes and capers to the roasting pan and place roasting pan on the middle rack of the oven and broil for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Tomatoes should start to brown slightly on edges with light caramelization.  You want to be sure that you know how good your broiler works.  You don’t want anything to burn (especially the garlic which will get bitter and you don’t want that).

Remove the pan from the broiler. Place the pan over 2 burners on the stove. Add the white wine to the tomatoes and cook for 2 to 3 more minutes over medium heat. Put the tomatoes into a deep pot or bowl and add the reduced tomato liquid to the tomatoes. Blend to desired consistency and adjust seasoning. 

That’s it.  Pretty darn easy right? Right.  I think that next time I make it I will cut down on some of the sugar, as it was a little sweet, though very tastey.  This brings about another important question.  Just what the hell do you DO with a big thing of pasta sauce?  Well you make spaghetti in your new mixer attachment, naturally.**  How do you do that?  Well my friends, I am glad that you asked.

From the KitchenAid recipe:

3 large eggs
2 tablespoons water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Break eggs into a glass measuring cup. Add water. Carefully check to see that the total liquid amount is 3/4 cup. If less than 3/4 cup, add additional water 1 teaspoon at a time until that amount is reached.

Place flour in a bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater [to a KitchenAid stand mixer]. Turn to speed 2 and gradually add eggs and water. Mix for 30 seconds. Stop mixer and exchange dough hook for flat beater. Turn to speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes. As you can see here.

Remove mixture from bowl and hand knead for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Cover with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 15 minutes before extruding through Pasta Maker.  Once you run it through the pasta maker, you want to be sure to separate it so that it doesn’t clump up together, as seen here.

Finally, you toss the pasta into some well salted water and boil for 3-5 min, being sure to test as you go so what you don’t overcook it.

And that’s it.  Now you have the perfect pasta and sauce combination .  I suppose the only thing that may make this even better would be a well seared chicken breast and some fresh parmesan.   It might look something like…oh, I don’t know… this. Enjoy! 

* This is only speculation.

** If you don’t have one, then rush out and get one.  I’ll wait.  What do you mean you don’t have the ability to go out and get it.  Fine.  You can buy some pasta, but I guarantee it will not be the same. 

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