Rick’s Saturday Morning Leftover Asparagus Frittata

I don’t know about you, but we like asparagus, but often it’s just the two of us, so we’re left with a pretty green pile of leftover cooked asparagus that is too nice to throw out. We often have it on a Thursday with our fish (usually salmon, a nice combo), so the solution we have come up with is to have it for brunch or lunch on Saturday in an eggy cheesy thingy that is somewhere between an omelet and a frittata. This is also a good time in the day to eat it because asparagus for some weird chemical reason is a wine killer, so better to have it in the morning or noon hour, unless you are one of those people who drink early (you know who you are!)

I actually was inspired to make this by a recipe from Provence when my daughter was studying in Aix. Their omelet had the asparagus and the grated cheese mixed right into the egg batter, which seems to break all the rules, but it works as long as you watch your heat both top and bottom since this one starts on the range top and finishes in the broiler, and may have to go back and forth a few times to get it solid without burning the bottom (or the top, for that matter.) Don’t get too hung up on the amounts. Use what you have left over, and add more or fewer eggs.

So except for the burning at the bottom potential, and sometimes getting the thing out of the pan, this is simplicity itself, but takes your total concentration for a few minutes.

1 Tb Extra virgin olive oil
1 Tb butter
4 or 5 large eggs
1 cup cooked asparagus (more or less) chopped into small pieces
¼ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (I know it isn’t French, but that is actually what they use in Provence for some reason. Use real Parmesano-Reggiano if you can. It is worth it.)
1 Tb cream or milk (I use skim and it’s fine, trust me)
Salt and pepper to taste

In a medium bowl beat the eggs with your biggest whisk or an egg-beater until they get a little fluffy.Then add the chopped asparagus, the grated cheese, and salt and pepper, and stir.

Swirl the oil around in a 10 inch non-stick pan over medium high heat, and when the bottom is covered add the butter and cook it just until it starts foams. Turn the heat down to medium and dump the contents of the bowl into the pan.

Now you have to be vigilant. Jiggle the pan very gently and slowly on the burner for a few minutes. You will need to lower your heat to that sweet spot where the bottom is getting brown, but not sticking and burning. The batter should start to firm up and bubble a bit, and this is when you want to take it off the stovetop and put it under the broiler for a brief time. It should fluff a bit like a soufflé. Don’t let the top burn. You may have to go back and forth from broiler to range top to get it firm but still moist. You can do this. It should finish in the broiler till it gets a nice light brown finish, and voila!

Take it off the heat and work a rubber spatula around the edges of the pan to loosen it up. Pop it out and put it on a pretty plate. If it sticks a bit and comes out not entirely in one piecce, worry not, it will still be delicious. You may have to reassemble it some (for example, the photo at the top is from today and it needed just a little bit of arranging.  The photo at bottom is from another time and came out clean in one piece.  It's a mystery). As Julia said about getting an omelet out of a pan, you have to have the courage of your convictions. Serve this with buttered toast. It feeds the two of us amply, but with the toast could easily feed three or four. Enjoy.

(Photos by R. L. Floyd)

Rick's Gooey Inauthentic Chicken Enchiladas

These are a family favorite, but they have no claim to any regional authenticity. For one thing, I use flour rather than corn tortillas, and for another I load them with sauce, and to add further insult, they are also much bigger than usual since I use burrito-size tortillas.

For shortcuts you can use leftover chicken (or turkey) or buy a rotisserie chicken and chop it up. For the salsa you could use good jarred salsa. I use 2-cup packages of Mexican-blend grated cheese, but you can grate Cheddar (not sharp) or Monterey Jack. Be alerted that you will need a really big baking pan to get these big boys all in. I use my roasting pan. You could do it in two pans if you need to. Feeds eight normal people (or four Floyds)

Ingredients

For the filling:

8 Burrito-size flour tortillas

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

1 large chopped white onion

12 oz homemade or jarred salsa

1 cup of grated cheese (Mexican blend, cheddar, or Monterey jack)

Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:

4 Tbsp vegetable oil

4 cups chicken broth

3 Tbsp chili powder

1 Tbsp ground cumin (cominos)

1Tbsp chopped canned chipotle peppers in adobo (optional, makes it pretty hot)

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes with their juice

2 garlic gloves chopped

2 tsp dried oregano

1 cup grated cheese

chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

chopped Romaine or Iceberg lettuce

To make the sauce: Make the sauce first, because it needs to cook down a bit. In a two-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat and stir in the garlic and oregano for a few seconds being careful not to burn it. Add the chili powder and cumin and stir constantly for about a minute until you get a thick paste. Then slowly drizzle in the stock while stirring. You want to incorporate the other-ingredients into the stock. Stir in the tomatoes and the chipotles and bring the pot to a boil, then turn your heat down to get a good simmer.Let the sauce simmer and cook down while you assemble the enchiladas. It will not thicken too much, but don’t worry since it will spend another half hour in the oven.

To assemble the enchiladas: In a large mixing bowl mix chicken, onion, salsa, and 1 cup cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour 1 cup of the sauce into the bottom of a large baking pan. Put a tortilla on a plate and fill with one-eighth of the filling, rolling each of them one at a time, and placing each of them into the baking pan with the seam side down to hold them together.

To cook. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour the remaining sauce on top of the enchiladas so that it moistens the tops of all the tortillas.Sprinkle 1 cup grated cheese over the top of the enchiladas, and put the pan uncovered into the oven for 30 minutes. Remove the enchiladas from the oven and let them sit for 5 minutes. With a spatula put an enchilada on each plate, put chopped lettuce on either side of it, and sprinkle with fresh chopped cilantro.

(Photos: R.L. Floyd)

(This was the first recipe to appear on my other blog, Retired Pastor Ruminates, on August 11, 2009, and still one of the most popular)

Rick’s Five-Bean Super Bowl Chili con Carne for a Crowd

(Note: This one appeared at Retired Pastor Ruminates on October 9, 2009, but I thought I'd drag it over here for the Super Bowl this weekend. I apologize to any Vikings fans for any pain I may cause them for mentioning their team right now.)

This is an old Super Bowl favorite of ours. I made it last night. I know, it wasn’t the Super Bowl, but both the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers played like it was, and the Minnesota fans cheered and carried on like it was. All it was was Bret Favre playing against his old team on Monday Night Football.  My son had invited some of his teacher friends over, so I figured I needed to pile on (notice the football metaphor) the food.

This is a good dish for a crowd. You can make it ahead and let it get happy on a back burner, so if your guests are arriving at indeterminate intervals, it’s perfect.

You will need a very large heavy cast iron casserole or Dutch oven for this one. It makes a lot of chili.

3 tbs vegetable oil

4 yellow onions, peeled and sliced

1 bell papper, sliced (I used red but green is OK and cheaper)

2 or 3 small hot peppers, deseeded and chopped (I used long red hots, but jalapenos are fine. Just don’t use habeneros or the heat will overwhelm the subtlety of the other nice flavors)

3 lbs ground beef (I used Black Angus 80-20, but you can go leaner if fat freaks you out, but you will lose some flavor. If you use turkey, just don't tell me.)

6 tbs chili powder

2 tbs ground cumin (comino)

2 tbs paprika (use smoked if you have it, but only use 1 tbs)

1 tbs fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp ground white pepper (if you have it)

2 tps salt (I used Kosher, but it doesn’t matter)

1 beer (not dark, whatever you have in the fridge. I used Corona)

1 35 oz. can of good tomatoes, whole or pureed

2 tbs chopped canned chipotle peppers in adobo

1 14.5 oz. can beef broth or your own beef stock

1 15.5 oz. can red kidney beans

1 15.5 oz. can dark red kidney beans

1 15.5 oz can pinto beans

1 15.5 oz. can small red beans

1 15.5 oz can black beans.

The kernels from an ear of cooked fresh corn, or its frozen equivilent.

Chopped fresh cilantro, chopped white onion, sour cream and grated Mexican or Cheddar cheese for garnishes. Serve with tortilla chips.

Heat the oil in your big pot or in heavy-bottomed big skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion and peppers for about ten minutes stirring occasionally. Turn up the heat to medium high and add the ground beef, stirring until it is brown and there is no pink at all. This is a lot of meat so it will take a while.

Turn the heat back to medium, add the chili powder, cumin, paprika, black and white pepper and salt and stir to mix. Pour the beer over it (it will foam impressively) and stir to mix. Let that simmer for ten minutes, then stir in the tomatoes, chipotles, and beef broth, breaking the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon if you use whole ones.

Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Let this cook for one hour, stirring occasionally. Then stir in all five kinds of beans (undrained with their juices), and bring to a boil, then reduce to a very gentle simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally to keep the bottom from sticking. Stir in the corn and cook for ten more minutes.

I put out bowls and let people ladle themselves what they want, and I put the garnishes in small bowls and let people doctor their own. Serve with tortilla chips.

The natural accompaniment is cold beer, but red wine works fine, too. I drank an inexpensive tempranillo from Spain with it last night and it was a nice match. Enjoy.

(Photo: R.L. Floyd)

Rick’s Oven-Braised Straccato (Pot Roast) over Polenta

1 Tb. olive oil
1 3 lb. chuck roast, tied with twine ( I like Black Angus)
1 medium onion chopped
2 carrots chopped
1 celery stalk chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 sprigs of fresh parsley (optional)
1 cup hearty dry red wine
2 cups beef stock plus more if needed.
1 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 tsp dried sage leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
Kosher salt and pepper

This is basically a pot roast.  Eliminate the tomatoes and garlic, substitute dried thyme for the sage, add a bay leaf, and you have my basic pot roast recipe. That one I would serve over mashed potatoes, but this one I like over polenta. A straccato is a regional Italian pot roast, and this is my take on it. Let’s call it a North Jersey pot roast!

This is easy but takes a bit of time, which is what braising is all about.  I cook it all in my cast iron Dutch Oven, but you could do it in any fireproof pot that can go from the range to the oven. You can also cook the whole thing on the range top, but I like the even heat of the oven. I made this yesterday, put it in the oven at 4 p.m., went and had my daily nap, and it was all ready to eat by 6:45 (it needs to sit for a bit). Even better make it the day before, slice the cooled meat, heat up the sauce, and you are ready to go.

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F.  Heat the oil over medium high heat and swirl it around until it covers the bottom. Dry off your roast with paper towels (it won’t brown if it’s damp) and sprinkle it liberally with Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Then using tongs, or two wooden spoons, put it in the pot and brown it on all sides (don’t use a fork, because it will release the juices and you want them in there). Depending on your heat this will take between ten and twenty minutes, but the trick is to get it a very dark brown without burning it, so pay attention (which is what good cooking is all about).

When the roast is nice and brown, take it out and put it aside on a plate, and reduce your heat to medium.  Put in your chopped onion, carrot and celery, and stir with a wooden spoon now and again until the veggies are also nice and brown (but not burnt!), about ten minutes.

Add the garlic cloves and cook for another minute or so, then add you wine, beef stock, herbs and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Then lower heat to a simmer and, stirring occasionally, let it cook for about ten minutes.

Then lower the meat on top of the veggies.  The braising liquid should come about half way up the meat.  If it doesn’t add more stock, but don’t put too much liquid in, because you want to braise it and not boil it.

Bring it back to a good boil, put the lid on it, and put it in the oven.  A 325 degree oven will typically keep a simmer just about right for braising, though you may need to adjust your heat according to variations in your oven temperature.

You want to cook this for about 2 and 1/2 hours total.  After about an hour, check the pot, lower or raise the oven temp if needed, and flip the meat over. If the liquid is low top it off with some more stock.

After two and one half hours, check the meat. It should be nice and tender but still firm enough to cut.  Put it on a platter, tent it with foil, and let it sit for fifteen minutes. While the meat is cooling, put your braising liquid on the range top and simmer it to reduce the sauce, stirring now and again. Remove the parsley sprigs, taste and season for salt and pepper.

Slice your meat against the grain and plate it over the polenta or mashed potatoes, then ladle the sauce generously and enjoy.  We had this with steamed brussel sprouts last night for a hearty winter meal, but a green salad would work fine.  A dry red wine will be just right. We drank a Masciarelli, a nice inexpensive Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, that is our current house red. This makes a nice, pretty easy, meal on a cold winter night that will be a crowd pleaser.

(Photos: R.L. Floyd)

Rick’s Pub-style Beefsteak and Mushroom Pie with Ale

I can’t get my crowd to eat kidneys, so this is my take on an old pub favorite, steak and kidney pie, only in this case using mushrooms.  You can substitute a dry red wine for the ale, and it will be delicious, but very different.

3 tbs. vegetable oil
¼ cup flour for dredging, plus 3 tbs. for filling
2 lbs. beefsteak, boneless top sirloin or chuck, cut in 2 inch pieces
1 lb white mushrooms quartered
4 tbs. butter, divided
1 large onion chopped fine
1 bottle or can of ale (I used “Old Speckled Hen”)
1 cup beef stock or broth
2 carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp dried thyme

This is another popular winter comfort dish.  Many traditional recipes for meat pies have you make the filling first, then cool it completely, even a day ahead, and then pour it into a casserole dish, top with a crust and bake.  That may be the best way, but takes more time than most of us have these days  So I cheat and do it all at once.  I make my filling in my Dutch oven, cook it for an hour or so, cool it for about 20 minutes, then transfer it and cook to finish. It comes out just fine.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Dredge beef in the flour (I just dry the beef with paper towels and dump it in a freezer bag with the flour, seal and shake.  Remove excess flour before putting in oil.)

Heat the oil in Dutch oven or pot over medium high heat.  Brown (but don’t burn) the beef in two batches, and remove to a plate with a slotted spoon.  Put 2 tbs. butter in the pot and sauté mushrooms for 3 or 4 minutes.  Remove them to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Sauté the onions for about five minutes. Reduce the heat to medium.  Add the remaining 3 tbs. flour and stir to incorporate.  Add the ale, stock, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, thyme, and bring it all to a boil, stirring, until it thickens slightly.  Return the beef and mushrooms to the pot, add the carrots, stir, cover and put it in the oven and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Remove pot from oven, take off the cover, give it a stir, and let it stand for twenty minutes.  Add the frozen peas.  Pour the whole thing into a 3 quart buttered casserole dish.  Cover casserole with a piecrust cut to size (you can use biscuits or puff pastry if you prefer.)  Brush the crust with an egg wash consisting of 1 large egg to 2 Tbs. milk whisked together for a golden crust.

Raise the oven temperature to 425 degrees F. and place the casserole in oven.  Cook for 25 minutes, checking it toward the end to keep the crust from burning.  Remove and let it sit for 5 minutes before serving.

The perfect beverage to go with this is a pint of the ale in the pie, or else a hearty dry red wine.
(Photo:  R.L. Floyd)

Where I Ruminate on My Long Love Affair with Food

I love food. I love to cook it, and I love to eat it, especially my own.
Mom and Dad both cooked. It wasn’t haut cuisine, but it was pretty healthy and had variety. I was born in 1949 so my earliest days in memory are in the fifties, not a heyday for American cookery. We had our share of frozen potpies and TV dinners and Mrs. Paul’s fish-sticks, but more often it was a home-cooked meal. My mother was a Midwesterner, so it was pretty simple with not a lot of seasoning. But she did have a well-worn copy of M.F.K. Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf” on her shelf, which was pretty avant-garde in those days. Fisher, Elizabeth David, and, of course, the incomparable Julia Child, were bringing back dispatches from the front about such exotica as olive oil and fresh garlic.

My favorite food was my mother’s fried chicken, which was a company dish. I remember fat pork roasts you couldn’t buy today for love nor money, with an inch of fat on the outside, and cooked ‘til it was gray for fear of trichinosis. The Sunday roast appeared mysteriously throughout the week in various guises and disguises. My Mom’s pork roast would supply the main ingredient for my Dad’s Pork Chop Suey or Chow Mein. That was exotica in the days before Szechuan and Hunan restaurants, when all American Chinese food was faux Cantonese. We had mac and cheese and ham steaks and haddock (frozen) that Mom would roll in corn meal and fry.

We seldom went out because it was expensive. When we did it was for pizza at an Italian bar called the Antlers (this was North Jersey) or to Westwood to the Cantonese place, where my Dad would always silently issue a “winner take all” challenge to the poor waiter with the water pitcher. Or for a real treat we might get the clam strip roll at Howard Johnson.

In those days, at least in my house, there was no extra virgin (or any) olive oil, no kosher salt, no pepper mill (that came ground from Durkees), no fresh garlic, no cilantro, no jalapeno peppers, no garam masala, or Hungarian paprika. Cheese was typically Longhorn cheddar. Steak was chuck and cooked gray. Pasta was spaghetti with red sauce from a jar, with some browned ground beef in it.

My parents didn’t drink when we were growing up, so the first wine I recall having was the sweet Portugese rose, Mateus, that was the rage when I was in college.

I started cooking when I was a young adult in the years before I married. It started with a simple spaghetti sauce or chili con carne. I added a spinach loaf that was mainly frozen spinach and crumbled Saltines.

When Martha and I were married our friends the Handspickers gave us a copy of Fannie Farmer’s Cook Book as a wedding present. That was my first cookbook, and I made my way through it and added more dishes to my repertoire: sauerbraten, shish kabob, and variety of soups, chowders, and stews. Martha gave me Joy of Cooking in our early days and I added still more. We moved to Bangor in 1979 and they didn’t have a decent Chinese rerstaurant, so I went to the Bangor Public Library and found Joyce Chen’s Cookbook and taught myself rudimentary Chinese cooking. There was a little Vietnamese place with a small market, and I found tree ears and tiger lily blossoms to make hot and sour soup.

I discovered other cookbook authors: Julia Child, James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Madhar Jaffrey, and Marion Cunningham. I made tandoori chicken and turkey enchiladas, paella and ratatouille. I discovered wine can be tasty. I still remember Arthur and Anne Perkins coming to dinner and bringing a bottle of Cabernet from Rutherford, and it was a revelation. In 1980 Martha and I went to Sonoma County to visit my college friend John Kwitkor, who worked for winemaker David Stare at Dry Creek Vineyards. John took us up and down the county, tasting and eating and having a ball.

When our children arrived on the scene a few years later they landed in a culinary household far different from the one I grew up in. They ate tofu with scallions in oyster sauce regularly, and curries with raita, which Rebecca called “cucumber white.” When they were four and six we dragged them off to Oxford, England, for a term, and they ate pakoras and samosas, Scotch eggs and Cornish pasties, scones with jam and cucumber sandwiches with no crusts.

On a plane ride back in the days of airline food the flight attendant asked the woman next to my son Andrew, then about age five, which entrée she would like, one of the choices being coq au vin. “What is that?” she asked. “It’s chicken, Mam,” my little guy answered. When my daughter returned from Oxford she started in kindergarten again here in the states, and early in the year the children were all asked to name their favorite food. There was lots of pizza, pasta, and hamburgers represented, but the teacher got a big charge out of Rebecca’s choice: tandoori chicken.

This little culinary autobiography was prompted by Michael Pollan’s piece in the New York Times Magazine last week about food, where he writes about how we are becoming spectators of food rather than makers of it.

I still make food. Every day. I don’t do it to be virtuous, but because I enjoy it. I enjoy making it for others and sharing it with them. As a pastor for thirty years I know the joy of celebrating the sacraments with a community. There is a near-sacramental quality about a meal well-prepared and presented and enjoyed with family and friends. I often take pictures of the foods I make for a “cookbook” that maybe someday will be Christmas presents for my family (the pictures in this blog are all of things I have made).

My parents didn’t make fancy food, but they made good food, and from them I learned the joy of the table, about taking your time, and enjoying your food and the company and the conversation. We all know we need food to live, but I believe we also have a deep hunger for this larger communal experience of which food is just one part, albeit an important one. To me food takes time, thought, and creativity so it becomes something to celebrate and not just to eat.

(Photos from top: Grilled shrimp with uncooked basil tomato sauced pasta; Littleneck clams with black bean sauce; Portuguese Cataplana; Korean BBQ'd Flanken Beef Short Ribs. Photos by R.L. Floyd)

(This is reposted from my August 10, 2009 blog at “Retired Pastor Ruminates.”)

Rick’s Rich Ragu with Wild Mushrooms over Homemade Tagliatelle

This rich meat ragu is my nod to a traditional Bolognese sauce. The wild mushrooms add a wonderful earthiness to it.

OK, so I’m showing off just a little here with the homemade pasta, but you really don’t have to serve this sauce over fresh pasta. It is equally delicious over dried pasta such as Rigitoni or Penne. But if you are going to work all day on the sauce, use good quality imported dried pasta like De Cecco.

But if you have the time, homemade pasta is a wonderful thing, and it’s not really hard to make, but, trust me on this, it does take time. When my children were little, and my wife, Martha, who is a nurse, had to work at night, I would muster my little force and the kids would “help” me make fresh pasta. It kept them busy for hours, and at the end of the process we had lovely Tagliatelle hanging from all kinds of drying racks and everybody (and the kitchen) was covered with flour, and Mom didn’t even have to see it.

I have made this pasta several ways: with just a rolling pin and a sharp chef's knife, with the pasta extruder on my Kitchen-Aid mixer, and with a stainless steel hand-cranked pasta machine. I like the latter best myself. I bought mine at the First Church tag sale many years ago, and it has made a lot of pasta at the Floyd household.

So if you have the better part of a day to hang out in the kitchen this can be a great project on a cold day. Your simmering sauce will fill the house with lovely aromas. And the ragu itself isn’t very hard to put together, although it takes a certain vigilance over many hours. But the nice thing about it is that during that time you can make the pasta, and at the end of the day you will have a lovely comfort food dinner that will delight everyone at the table.

For the Ragu

4 tbs butter

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

¼ lb. pancetta, finely chopped

1 medium yellow onion chopped fine

1 carrot chopped fine

1 celery stalk chopped fine

½ cup dry white wine

½ cup whole milk

1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1 28 oz can good whole Italian tomatoes with liquid

2 pounds lean ground beef

1 oz. dried wild Porcini mushrooms

Salt and pepper to taste

The pancetta is hard to cut fine enough by hand, so I cut it into small chunks and finish it in the food processor with the onions, carrots, and celery, and that keeps it from sticking to the blade.

Cover the porcini mushrooms with hot water and let sit while you do the next stages.

Heat oil and butter in a large heavy-bottomed skillet or casserole, and when the butter foams add the pancetta, onion, carrot and celery and sauté over medium high heat until it takes on some color and is beginning to brown.

Turn the heat down to medium and add the beef. Cook, breaking up the pieces and stirring, until the pink goes out of the beef, but don’t brown it. Add the white wine, turn the heat back up a bit, and let all the wine evaporate, stirring now and again. Turn the heat back down to medium and add the milk and nutmeg, and cook until the milk evaporates, stirring from time to time.

Add the tomatoes, squeezing them between your fingers into the pan. Pour the mushrooms through a sieve lined with cheesecloth (or a coffee filter) into a bowl and retain the liquid. Chop the mushrooms coarsely and add to the pot along with their liquid.

Bring it all to a very gentle simmer, partially cover, and literally put it on a back burner for as many hours as you can, stirring from time to time and watching your heat so it doesn’t start boiling. If you are gentle with this sauce it will reward you. How long? The one I made yesterday had at least six hours, but I would say at least three. It should reduce into a thick rich sauce. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper.

When you are ready to serve it, toss your pasta with just enough of the sauce to moisten it (it’s really rich) and serve bowls of sauce along with it so people can add more if they choose. Top each plate with freshly grated Parmegianno-Reggiano cheese and you’ve got a little bit of heaven on a plate. A salad and some crusty bread will round out this meal.

For wine, a good Tuscan red or a Nebbiola-based wine will make you smile.

For the Tagliatelle

Do not be afraid to try this. The dough for this pasta has only two ingredients, flour and eggs. Some people are dogmatic about using pasta flour, but I just use King Arthur All-purpose Flour and extra-large eggs. For six servings I use three cups of flour and four eggs.

Put your flour on a clean counter or pastry board and make a well with it. Then break the eggs into the center of the well (see photo below) and with a fork beat them, while drawing small amounts of flour from the edge of the well. Don’t be impatient; you can do this! Just keep beating the eggs and drawing flour into them until you have a nice soft dough.

Put the dough aside and scrape off your board. Put flour on your hands and on the board and knead your dough for about 10 to 15 minutes. Add extra dough a little at a time until the dough is soft and pliable. When you stick a finger in the dough it shouldn’t be wet, but not too dry. You’ll know.

It is now ready for the pasta machine. The pasta machine has two parts, a set of rollers that rolls the dough, and the actual blades that cut the pasta into ribbons. Set the rollers on your machine for the widest width. Cut a piece about the size of a large egg, and put the rest under a towel so it won’t dry out. Run the piece through the rollers 6 or 8 times until the dough is smooth and isn’t sticky. Adjust the roller to the next smallest setting and repeat the process. Keep adjusting the rollers smaller until you get the dough to about 1/16 of an inch, then put it through the cutting blades and make your ribbons of Tagliatelle. You can put the pasta on a rack, or nest it into a small bundle (see photo below). Then start again with another piece and follow the above procedures until you have made pasta from all the dough. This takes some time, but is strangely calming.

When you are ready to cook the pasta, bring a good-sized pot of water to a boil and cook pasta for only about three minutes, then sauce with the ragu. Yum. This is why my kids call me the “Pasta Emeritus!” Enjoy.

(Photos: R.L. Floyd)