Eggs and Flour (and Duck)

Hello, again, everyone. I know I've been absent for too long, so here's a few new ideas I've been batting around, along with some musings on the huge amount of fresh pasta I've been making over the last few months.

We picked up a classic Imperia hand-crank pasta roller over the summer for a song. It had caught my eye in the store because the box is still exactly the same as the one that slumbered in my parents' basement all year until Christmas day. For some reason (which has never been fully explained, mind you), we make fresh spinach ravioli every year for our Christmas dinner. Naturally, seeing that old red box in the kitchen store was enough to make me buy it.

Making the pasta was another story altogether. I've never been one for doughs, always feeling intimidated by the gloppy mess on the cutting board. The few times I have tried making pizza dough, for instance, didn't work out so well. With those stiff pies in my mind, I sat and stared at the pasta machine for weeks before I attempted a batch. Finally fed up with my wimpiness, I consulted my friend Giuseppe on his mother's recipe - he estimated that his mom has probably made several thousand pounds of pasta in her day.

So, with a little tinkering and a very little effort, my first batch of tagliatelle was born. I used our Kitchenaid mixer to get the eggs and flour together, and then turned everything out onto a well-floured cutting board a got to kneading. Ten minutes later I had a beautiful, smooth, dense , golden ball. I wrapped it in plastic and let it rest on the counter for about 45 minutes. That rest period firms everything up so that I won't tear while you're rolling it out.

A dusting of flour, a few passes through the rollers, and out came silky flat sheets of pasta, ready to be cut and dried. Below's a great recipe we tasted in Tuscany this summer. Beans were everywhere there, sometimes whole, sometimes ground for their texture and thickening. Here we've got some chickpeas pureed to thicken a sauce of ground duck breast, rosemary, and orange peel. We tried this at the restaurant at Fattoria dei Barbi, a fantastic Brunello producer. When we ate it recently we drank a bottle of 1997 Castiglion del Bosco Brunello that we picked up in Pienza and a 1998 Bahans Haut Brion. The juicy, rich, meaty succulence of the Brunello, and the ripe earthiness and softness of the Pessac were perfect matches to the meaty, orange-scented pasta.

Fresh Tagliatelle with Duck, Orange, and Rosemary Ragout

For the pasta:
3 eggs
2 cups flour, plus 1 tablespoon

For the sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2" slice of pancetta, cubed
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1/2 duck breast, ground
1 cup chicken stock
zest and juice of 1/2 an orange
small rosemary sprig, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 can chick peas, pureed

Make the pasta:
In a stand mixer, or in a mixing bowl, combine the eggs and flour and mix until the eggs are incorporated and a roughly cohesive ball is formed, about a minute. The dough will be very loose and sticky. Pour the dough out onto a well-floured countertop or large cutting board. Knead well for at least ten minutes, flouring the board as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking. Discard any dried scraps that don't incorporate. Once you have a nice ball of dough, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter for at least a half hour.

Roll the dough through each setting of the pasta machine a few times, folding over and flouring in between. I like to roll no thinner that the second-thinnest setting. Cut strips about a foot long and 1/2" wide, then set the pasta out on floured baking sheets to dry. When you're ready to cook it, bring a large pot of water to a boil, add a healthy pinch of salt, then drop the pasta and let it cook for only about a minutes. Drain well and toss into the sauce, and it will finish cooking in the pan.

Make the sauce:
In a large saute pan heat the olive oil over medium heat. add the pancetta and cook until crispy. Remove the pancetta and set aside. Add the garlic and cook for a a minute or so, then add the ground duck and cook, stirring, until browned. Add the chicken stock, rosemary, orange zest and peel, chick peas, and salt and pepper. Bring the sauce to a boil and add the pancetta back to the pan. Add the drained pasta to the pan and toss to coat. Cook for a few minutes until the pasta is pefectly tender but still chewy, and you've got some seriously tasty dinner.