Meli and Me for dinner,
Today we are going to share our treat. Meli’s home made spaghetti to be specific.
It starts off with love and ends with a full belly. The first ingredient love could be your love for: pasta, food, or Me which Meli loves. So, after I asked her, she affirmed she would be head chef, & for me I was her sous chef, not only cooking but documenting the process and in doing so my love for Meli. Now homemade spaghetti!
Servings X4
Prep time 45 min
Cook time 10 min
Ingredients for Pasta dough ( about 8 servings)
⦁ 3 Cups of flour (Semolina or All purpose)
⦁ 4 Eggs (room temperature)
⦁ 4 Tbsp oil
⦁ 4 Tbsp water
⦁ 1 tsp salt
Ingredients for Tomato Sauce
⦁ 4 Cups of tomatoes
⦁ ½ Purple onion
⦁ 4 Cloves of garlic
⦁ 2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
⦁ 2 Tbsp Oil
⦁ 1 Tsp Italian seasoning
⦁ Salt & pepper to taste
First and foremost, you do not have to make your own pasta noodles as some of you will not have a pasta maker at your disposal, but for those of us who do, follow along closely. We begin by creating the dough for our pasta.
For this recipe you could use all semolina flour, half and half or like I made it, the whole 3 cups all-purpose flour as I did not have semolina on hand.
Mix in a bowl the eggs, oil, water and salt, set aside.
On a flat surface make a “volcano shape” with the flour leaving a whole in the middle where you can put the egg mixture, slowly add it as you mix by bringing the flour into the eggs, kneed it for about 10 to 15 min or until the dough looks smooth, feel free to add either flour or water, depending on how dry or wet the dough is.
Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it sit for around 30 to 40 minutes. We let it sit about 2 hours, as we went to play soccer in between.
For the sauce, score the tomatoes with an “x” at the bottom for easier peeling later. Add them to boiling water till skin starts to peel off about 30 to 40 seconds, take them out and cool them out. Peel the skin off and add to food processor with the garlic cloves.
Sauté the onions in the oil and when translucent add the tomatoes and garlic mix, cook for about 5 min then add the balsamic vinegar and the rest of the seasonings, cook on low because now it’s time to finish our pasta.
By now your dough should be ready to go, cut the dough in 6 or 8 even pieces so it easier to handle. Make sure you have lots of flour to coat the counter and the dough as you don’t want anything to stick into the pasta maker.
Begin to put the dough through the thickest setting on the pasta roller starting, my case was #7; for the first times it goes thru, make sure you fold it into 3, put thru the roller again and repeat at least 2-3 times. This helps to have more consistency with the product.
As you keep rolling make sure you put the dough through at least couple times in each size. I went all the way to size #3 as I was doing spaghetti shape, it totally depends how would you prefer it. This could be the most labor-intensive process but also one of the most rewarding. TaDa, moments, minutes or hours later you have all thinly pressed sheets of dough, now you can begin to run it through the pasta cutter.
Make sure you flour the sheets of dough before it goes thru the cutter and flour the pasta right after and spread it out, so it doesn’t stick to each other.
If you are making a lot and want to preserve it, one option is to freeze it at this point I would recommend you portion it first into smaller batches.
If cooking right away, set a pot with lots of water and a little of salt, once its boiling, add the pasta and cook for about 5 min.
Once you finish boiling the pasta strain and drain; save about ¼ cup of this water and add to your sauce this will make your sauce a bit thicker.
We sautéed the pasta with butter then added the sauce on top. Enjoy!
Meli & me started out with love and like my grandma said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; this rings true for me, not only I was full of pasta but of love for the rigorous effort and love Meli put into the spaghetti. Thanks to all for reading and for sharing with other Foodies or pasta lovers. If you enjoyed this read or enjoyed the recipe or would like to know , share your thoughts in the comment section below. And until next time with love from Meli and Me.
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