Homemade Pasta with Scallop Alfredo Sauce

Dinner tonight was a homemade pasta and with sides of green beans. The pasta I made tasted great. For it, I used a basic pasta recipe and then added in some pesto that I made earlier from the basil plant I keep in the kitchen. After mixing, rolling and cutting the pasta, I served it with a simple Alfredo sauce along with sauteed sea scallops. For the green beans, all I did was saute some onions, hit it with some red wine vinegar and then finished the dish by adding in the blanched green beans. Below I will discuss some of the techniques used and they will be accompanied by photos. Enjoy.

French Laundry’s Pasta Dough
French Laundry Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup (8 oz) all-purpose flour
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon milk

Instead of mixing the dough by hand, I used my KitchenAid stand mixer. It may sound lazy, but this way is 10 times faster, and the dough comes out the same it would when done by hand. Start off by mixing the dry ingredients together in the bowl. Make a well in the center and add the wet ingredients. Turn the mixer on, fitted with the dough hook, and let it go. It only takes a few minutes and your end result it a wonderful dough. (As I mentioned earlier, I added pesto to the mix; about 1 Tbs., just to add a little more flavor). After kneading, wrap your dough ball in plastic wrap. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes. Then roll out your pasta!

1. You start by taking a portion of the dough, roll it thin enough to fit in the pasta roller, and crank away. Be sure to flour the dough when you change sizes. I took my down to the #7.
2. After rolling the dough the the desired thickness, either pass it through a pasta cutter (if you have one on your machine, mine broke) or cut it by hand. This is what I did. I cut the dough to about 1/4" strands, somewhat like fettuccine.

3. When ready, cook in boiling water for 3-4 minutes. Drain and serve with you favorite sauce. I enjoyed it tonight with a creamy Alfredo sauce with Sea Scallops. The Alfredo sauce is below.

Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
  

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cheese and whisk quickly, heating through. Stir in parsley and serve.


Overall Dish Difficulty: 2.5 out of 5