Friday, March 16, 2012

Whole Foods Friday: Hand made pasta with truffle sauce

Want to impress someone? Tell them you've made pasta by hand. Then gild the lily by serving it with a mushroom truffle sauce.

The real secret is that this is incredibly easy to make. The pasta doesn't have to be fancy - ragged and rustic is just fine. And it doesn't take long to make. No fancy tools, either.

As far as the truffle sauce ... well, you'll see.

This pasta doesn't need much more to go with it. A green salad with a vinaigrette would be perfect. A green vegetable on the side would be good, too, but since the pasta is the star, the vegetable can be very simply prepared.

Just for the fun of it, I made some pretty eggs, today, too. They're in the next post.

Pasta with Truffle Sauce

For the pasta:
2 cups all purpose flour (plus more as needed)
2 whole eggs
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
For the sauce:
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 pound fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 can Urbani Truffle Thrills white truffles and porcini
Salt and pepper, to taste

To make the pasta:
Pile the flour on your counter in a mound, then make a well in the center. Put the eggs, water, and salt in the well. Use a fork to break the yolks, then begin stirring the yolks, bringing more and more flour into the center as you go - but without letting the yolks escape that well - until you have a dough that you can begin to knead. It should be dense, but kneadable.

Knead the dough until it is smooth, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking to the counter.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and set aside to rest for 20-30 minutes. If you need to make this further in advance refrigerate it.

After the dough has rested, divide in half for easier rolling. Flour your work surface and roll the dough to less than the thickness of a corn tortilla. The thickness is really up to you, but keep in mind that the pasta will get thicker when it cooks.

Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the pasta into ribbons. Dust the pasta with flour to keep it from sticking. Repeat with the second half of the pasta.

Cook the pasta in generously salted boiling water until it is cooked to your liking. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly - just a few minutes.

To make the sauce:
Melt the butter in a saute pan and add the mushrooms. Add a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring as needed, until the mushrooms are cooked through. Add the Truffle Thrills and stir to combine with the mushrooms.

Add the cooked pasta to the mushrooms in the saute pan and stir to combine. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired. If the sauce seems too thick, add some of the pasta cooking water to thin it out.

Serve warm.
Yum