Pasta and tomato sauce

With a little practice, you can make fresh pasta and a light tomato sauce from scratch in about an hour.

These recipes are very basic and can be altered to suit your taste.

Pasta;

100 gr. Flour
1 large Egg

Traditional method

Make a well in the center of the flour on your work surface (I use the dining table), break the egg into the well.

With a fork slowly work the flour into the egg, once the dough takes on some mass, use your hands to work the dough.

Push any excess flour aside for use while kneading the dough (if the dough is sticky add flour as needed).

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, and then set aside to rest 10 or 15 minutes more.

Flour the work surface and the rolling pin. Roll the dough out to the desired thickness then cut with a sharp knife into what ever shape and with you prefer.

Modern method,

Put dough attachment, flour and egg in a food processor, pulse until a dough ball is formed then run continuously for 5 minutes to knead.

Roll out and cut as before.

This takes about 30 minutes, a little longer the first few times.

Sauce;

2-4 T. Extra virgin olive oil
1 m. Red onion, diced
3 Garlic cloves, minced
2 T. Tomato paste
14 oz. Can Whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand
1 C. Wine
½ C. Fresh water
Fresh basil, chopped
Red chili flakes
Smoked paprika
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat. When the pan is hot add the oil wait for the oil to heat before adding the onion.

When the onion has started to brown stir in the tomato paste and garlic, let this cook about 10 minutes, you want to caramelize the sugars in the tomato paste.

Add the wine and deglaze the pan with a wooden spoon or spatula, the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan are where much of the flavor comes from.

Reduce the wine by about half.

Stir in the crushed tomatoes, water and basil. Add salt and pepper, paprika chili flakes to taste.

Bring to a boil then remove from heat and serve.

When serving with pasta;

Cook the pasta a minute short of al dente, drain the pasta and add straight to the sauté pan, cook the last minute in the sauce.

This takes about about 30 - 40 minutes.