5 Reasons to Make Your Own Pasta

1.  It's easy. Eggs. Flour. You're ready to roll.

2. If you love small appliances (or, if the people you live with claim you're addicted to small appliances), you really, really need to understand the purity of a non-electrical appliance, and only a pasta maker can truly bring you that joy.

3.  Fresh pasta can transform spring vegetables (sautéed, roasted, blanched, or even boiled) into the rock stars of the culinary world.  Make your asparagus sing all of its greatest hits.

4. Dried, boxed-up, plastic-wrapped pasta of an uncertain age can never compare to the attenuated, sleek and slippery pasta you roll carefully over and over again until you get to the highest setting on your machine. Just seconds in boiling water and these glistening, ultra-slender strands are ready for a judicious lashing of butter and olive oil, a sprinkle of crunchy salt, and a twirl of the fork before sliding across your tongue and over your teeth to . . . bliss.

5. I'll give you the recipe.  And there's another one below the photo.

Fettuccine with Asparagus Ribbons (by way of Cream Puffs in Venice, modified from a recipe by, of all people--I can't even believe I'm typing this but it really is a great recipe--Martha Stewart)

• 1 lb. trimmed asparagus
• 1 lb. FRESH fettuccine
• 1 Tb. olive oil
• 3 Tb. minced shallots (about two)
• 3/4 c. heavy cream (get over it--sometimes you have to live a little or just go ahead and invite company over if you need an excuse)
• 1/2 t. lemon zest (Martha uses a whopping 2 teaspoons--add to taste)
• 2 Tb. fresh lemon juice
• Freshly ground pepper and coarse salt

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and prepare an ice-water bath.  Blanch asparagus until barely tender, about 3 minutes.  Transfer with tongs to ice-water bath.  Drain.

Shave asparagus stalks (not the tips) into long ribbons with a vegetable peeler.  Chop off the tips and place shavings and tips into a medium bowl.

Re-boil the asparagus water and add pasta.  Cook for 1-2 minutes.  Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water and then drain pasta into a colander.

Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat and add shallots, cooking until translucent (about 4 minutes).  Add the cream, 1/4 c. of the reserved water, and asparagus.  Bring to a boil and toss in pasta.  Cook it all together until it's heated through, adding a little more cooking water if it seems dry.  Stir in the zest, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and then taste to adjust seasonings.  Transfer portions to plates and watch this lemony, creamy embodiment of springtime disappear.  Serves 4. Or two adults and two children who don't really like it. Or maybe just 3.

Comments

[Deborah Dowd]

Bravo! I actually made homemade spinach pasta (sans machine) years ago, and while it was a bit of work it was also a lot of fun and the results made boxed pasta pale in comparison!

[Ivonne]

Ah, Brandon!

You have summed up the beauty of making pasta so well. And I love that you hang it from the hardware of your cabinetry. I have to try that next time.

I had to laugh at your Martha comment. Believe me I felt the same way when I tried it. But I'm glad you had success with the recipe.

Buon appetito!

[Ann]

Making pasta with my mother is one of my fondest childhood memories. She now makes spinach fettucini with the girls when they come to visit. I need to start making pasta again!

[Brandon]

Ivonne: It's terrible, isn't it! But somehow I can't seem to help sneaking looks at her recipes and when I saw your reference to it on your site, I knew I had to try it. You made it okay to try Martha in public!

Deborah: Rolled by hand! You are a trooper!

Ann: Let my children do it? Never!

[farmgirl]

Thanks for the reminder that I need to dust off my poor neglected pasta machine! Great photos. Love your "get over it" re the heavy cream, as I am one of those people who usually stops reading as soon as I see there's a whopping amount of cream in a recipe. : )

[Tripp Fenderson]

"Let my children do it? Never!"

Why not? Other than cooking clams for daddy, making pasta is one of Teagan's (now age 6) favourite kitchen activities.

It's simple to do and insanely fun watching the machine roll out and cut the sheets of pasta.

Plus, if you totally screw up, your out all of about $1.50 in materials and you can feed the mess to your dog.

I haven't introduced her to the ravioli attachment yet. That's next on our kitchen agenda.

[Brandon]

Tripp--It is simple to do and insanely fun watching the machine roll out and cut the sheets of pasta--that's exactly why I don't let my children do it!

Actually, I'm being facetious--every time I make pasta I have a horrible internal struggle because I want to have all the fun and roll it out and of course, that's exactly what my children want to do too! And since I'm the mom and the grown-up, I have to master my impulse to shout, "No! It's my pasta machine!" I mean, what're you going to do? Start a mutual fund now to pay for all the therapist's bills later?