“Pasta e patate makes use of ingredients that aren’t so expensive: potato and pasta, and soffritto to make it aromatic. It’s very versatile – in winter we make it more of a soup, with extra liquid and more olive oil to give it a little spiciness.” Instead of making your own pasta, you could use a good-quality dried durum wheat pasta such as orecchiette or tagliatelle.
Ingredients
Soffritto
Method
Main
1.Pulse eggs and flour in a food processor until crumbs form (2 minutes). Turn onto a work bench and knead until smooth, then wrap and set aside to rest (30 minutes).
2.Divide dough in two and, working with one piece at a time, feed through pasta machine rollers, starting at the widest setting. Lightly flour dough as you fold and feed it through, reducing settings notch by notch down to the second-lowest setting. Cut into 15cm-long sheets, dust heavily with flour and layer on top of one another, roll into a log, cut into 1cm-wide strips then cut in half to make 5mm-wide strips. Shake strips open to form ribbons and set aside on a floured tray.
3.Place potato in a bowl, cover with cold water, drain. Repeat three times or until water is clear and starch is removed, then return potato to bowl with 500ml water and set aside.
4.For soffritto, heat half the oil in a saucepan over low-medium heat, add onion and garlic, stir occasionally until onion is almost caramelised (15-20 minutes). Add tomato, celery and parsley, season to taste, bring to the simmer, cook until tender (12-15 minutes).
5.Add potato and potato water to onion mixture with remaining oil and cook over medium-high heat until cooked through (15-25 minutes). Set aside.
6.Meanwhile, shake excess flour from pasta and cook in two batches, in two large saucepans of boiling salted water, until al dente (1½-3 minutes). Strain, reserving 250ml cooking liquid, and add pasta to soffritto with enough cooking liquid to moisten, toss to coat, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and serve with parmesan.
This recipe is from the May 2011 issue of .
Notes
