[Narrator]: "While they waited for the pasta to boil, Violet sauteed the garlic and washed and chopped the anchovies
By the time it was time for the youngest Baudelaire to chop the parsley with her teeth
All three children felt less miserable than they had...
... Since they first came to Count Olaf's."
[Babish]: Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging With Babish.
Where this week we're taking a look at the Pasta Puttanesca
from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
A pasta sauce that I hate and whose ingredients are strewn here before you, but first we have to make fresh pasta
This isn't our first time making fresh pasta on the show, so let's play around a little bit.
I'm going to start by mixing equal parts
That is two and a half ounces each of semolina and all-purpose flour. Add a little bit of kosher salt.
Whisk to combine and then measure out exactly 2.3 ounces of eggs.
Removing extra white as necessary and adding into a well, that we've dug into the center of our flours.
And whisking with a fork until roughly combined.
At which point, we're turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface
And begin, sort of bringing together with a bench scraper and once it starts forming a cohesive ball
We're gonna start kneading
Now despite all this precise measurement, you might find that your dough is still a little too sticky. So flour as needed.
And beat this guy into a smooth tacky mass.
That is tacky, not sticky. Think play-doh.
Pasta is after all, adult play-doh.
Form into a nice, sort of thick disc and wrap in plastic-wrap.
And let rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.
But we're not done yet, because I wanna try my hand at a straight-up semolina pasta dough
That is semolina flour, salt and water.
Nothing else.
A little less hydration for this pasta dough. More like 2oz of water to 5oz of semolina flour.
We're going to mix it together likewise with a fork. Turn it out onto a work surface and knead until tacky
It's almost exactly the same process, but I think it's gonna yield a little bit more toothsome noodle
And if you're into drying your pasta
This is a better option.
Because it doesn't have any eggs in it and that's exactly how they make the pasta that you buy in the store.
But we're not gonna do that,
We're going to wrap this guy up likewise in plastic-wrap and let them both rest for 30 minutes.
Go enjoy 1 and 1/3rds episodes of your favorite Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce sitcom
And return to some well rested pasta dough.
Roll it out with this little wooden dowel, because you lost your rolling pin when you moved apartments.
And begin laminating. That is rolling out on the widest setting on your pasta roller.
Folding out into thirds. Rolling out using our dowel.
Or a proper rolling pin.
And then rotating 90 degree, rolling out again and repeating three times.
If your dough has any crackliness to it
You will watch it disappear during this process that greatly improves your dough's texture.
Then, one notch at a time, we're going to start rolling a thinner and thinner I'm gonna go down to number three on my pasta roller
Give your finalized sheet of dough one last dusting of flour and then bust out the cutting attachment.
Once you've cut your first batch of noodles place them on a flour dusted baking sheet
That you probably should have had ready before you cut your first batch of noodles
and twist them down into a nice little pasta nest.
I personally prefer to cut these by hands so they can be a little thicker
But we got to be accurate.
And this is what the annoyingly named Baudelaire orphans used in the critically acclaimed Netflix series
Once we're done making our pasta nests
We're going to cover them in plastic-wrap and fridge him while we repeat the process with our egg dough
It's during this time that we can take a break from talking about food and talk about something else, like sports.
Like the Washinton Capitols and how they won the Stanley Cup and how important that is in the history of the dough
Thank God we can get back to cooking specifically the mise-en-place for our Puttanesca sauce
We have to start by pitting our olives and the easiest way to do this is to give them a little smash like a garlic clove
Revealing the delicious pit within and discarding the soft fleshy exterior
I'm just kidding do the opposite of that and give the olives a little chop
Just chunky enough that you still know that you're eating an olive. Set them aside
And then we're going to more finely chop up a couple tablespoons of capers.
And then something I've been looking forward to all day
Opening up a stainky-ass can of anchovies.
We're giving those little rinse then a little dry and then a little chop.
I literally do not care how finely you chop them.
Next up, we got to deal with the parsley.
And as you saw in the show, we need to chop these finely with our teeth. This proved to be pretty difficult
And of course, I'm just kidding. Use a knife. Be sanitary. Don't be gross.
We're then to prepare our tomatoes by... Opening them up.
Use a fork, if you want. And then we're going to peel and roughly chop what looked to me like
four to five to six or seven cloves of garlic.
Do this by giving each and every individual clove a little smash with your knife, pulling it out of the skin and giving it a little chop, and there we go.
Everything's ready for our sauce
So it can be dumped in as necessary
Time to change our apron 'cause we got a little gross.
There that's better.
And now it's time to sauté our garlic in maybe three or four tablespoons of olive oil for no more than a minute.
We don't want these browning or anything.
We just want to make them fragrant. We're then going to add our can of san marzano tomatoes
Breaking them up with our wooden spoon until they're in nice small pieces and then bringing the whole affair to a simmer.
If you want a more pronounced anchovy flavor, you can add them when you saute the garlic, but obviously that's not what I'm after
I'm going to add maybe two tablespoons worth now that the tomatoes are all nice and bubbly.
Along with our olives. Maybe 1/2 cups worth.
Again, you can optionally sauté these along with the garlic.
and lastly our chopped capers.
And then it's time to simmer this guy for eight to nine minutes
It's during this time that we can again engage in non-food based conversation like
Uhh...
Cryptocurrency.
I hear there was a, ehmm...
A dip recently. A big old dip and and when that happens it generally indicates a trend.
That now when the sauce gets to a point when you can drag your spoon through it and see the bottom of the pot
That means you're good to go. It's time to kill the heat and add the chopped parsley.
Let the residual heat mellow those sort of bright, herbaceous flavors
And keep the sauce warm while you let your pasta boil for no more than one minute.
Remember, this is fresh pasta. It does not take long to cook.
If you dried your pasta, do more like three or four minutes.
Now the orphans serve their pasta plain, with the sauce poured over top
I don't recommend this but if you're gonna do it
Make sure you butter your pasta and season them with a little bit of salt and pepper so it doesn't stick together
And so it's not so reliant on the sauce for seasoning.
I could just eat this as is but it's time to plate up.
We're going to put a nice generous twirl of pasta in our bowl and drape the sauce over top
Don't go skimping on the sauce now because there's nothing worse in the world than under-sauced pasta
You can optionally garnish with a little bit of extra parsley and then it's time to dig in
Give it a little bit of Tony Soprano style stabbing and mixing with your fork to get the sauce all worked in there.
And let's see if I can stomach more than just one bite of this monstrosi- Actually, it's not that bad
It's kind of like a muffaletta
It's a lot of things that I don't like coming together to make something greater than the sum of their parts
So a clean plate club entrant for sure, but I think we can sauce it up a little bit better
Y'all know how I like to do it and that is get a single serving of sauce simmering in a saute pan
Cook your noodles and this time we're going to want to just barely touch them with boiled water like 30 seconds.
Before finishing cooking them in the sauce
Adding a nice pad of butter and giving the whole thing as my buddy Brad Leone would say "a nice tossy-toss"
This helps aerate the butter and makes the sauce creamier and lighter
We're gonna plate it up with a pasta fork like my other best friend Jon Favreau
Hit it with a little bit of extra sauce and like my godfather Francis Ford Coppola would do.
I'm just kidding. That went off the rails.
Grate some Parmesan cheese over top.
Now, we have a true member of the clean plate club leaving more time for pleasant conversation.
You guys playing Fortnite?