fettucini in cream with bacon

A pasta dough is prepared. Obviously this step can be skipped by using commercial dry or fresh pasta

Bacon is fried, the fat drained, diced onion and spinach added with cream. Nutmeg grated in.

A hard cheese is grated to top, Parmisiano, Romano, or Grana Padano. 

The dough is prepared from:

*  1/2 cup AP flour. 

*  1/2 cup semolina flour.

*  One large egg, that's what it says, but don't believe it, the egg was ordinary size.

*   1/2  egg shell filled with water as a cup. 

The dough is loaded with chile pepper flakes, dry mixed Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. This is transgressive to pasta purity, but today I wanted the pasta itself to be exceedingly flavorful and not just the sauce that covered it. I swear on a stack of holy publications of your choice that it takes only a minute or two to bring the dough together and work it sufficiently to develop its gluten structure, but it then must relax to distribute evenly the hydration on the molecular level and to autolyse, a process whereby in the presence of moisture, enzymes release from within the flour and begin to break down the structure of the milled grain. Resting makes the dough much easier to work and it tends not to shrink back when stretched and rolled out. 

So the dough is started first and rolled out, cut, and boiled last. During the dough-resting period, everything else is prepared. So the actual sequence is shown here out of order but in a way that makes sense for each separate part. Right here is where everything shown below the boiling pasta takes place, but instead the dough is being shown. 

The dough is rolled out rather thickly for a rustic fettucini. The Atlas could be hooked up for the following steps but that would take away all the dough-rolling fun and preclude the practicing of seriously mad knife-wielding skillz. 

Flour the dough before folding so that the individual noodles will unroll after being cut. The cuts must be perpendicular to the folds or else each noodle will be zig-zagged, not actually a disaster altogether, but indicative of novice careless cutting. 

This ↑ is why pasta tends to boil over when not tended carefully. The surface starch that coats each pasta strand, even on commercial dry pasta, sloughs off in the water imparting structure and strength to each bubble so that they can pile up and spill over. It also makes the pasta water perfect for thinning sauces that begin to burn or become too dry. The starch within the pasta water is itself a thin sauce. 

ARTS !

There was too much bacon at the end of the package and that forced me to eat some. 

Onion added to the finished bacon. Excess bacon fat drained. Spinach added. Then cream and nutmeg. 

Finally the cooked pasta is added sopping wet to the bacon sauce. 

poached egg with pasta

This is unbelievably delicious but I have to work on it a little bit more before it goes on the menu. I'm visualizing serving it as a separate course following a salad. The idea is to enlist a guest or possibly two and produce the pasta right there, engaging the guests, you see. It's fun! Attach the motor to the pasta machine just to make it even more fun. While that's going on, poach enough eggs to perfection with a few extra and keep them warmed until the pasta and sauce is ready. Homemade fettucini, white sauce with Parmigiano Reggiano and pancetta or bacon and basil, poached egg coated with parsley, and probably a few chunks of fresh tomato on top.

I'm seeing this happening all at once and coming together at a precise moment. I practice it in my mind: Pasta being mixed, rolled out, cut cooked and drained; thin white sauce prepared, grated cheese, fried pork of some kind; basil and parsley torn and chopped and ready to go; nearly a dozen eggs poached. Onto pre-warmed plates, pasta coated with sauce, sprinkled with pork bits Parmigiano and basil, topped with poached egg covered with parsley and decorated with bright tomato. Served in disappointingly small amounts on salad plates following a salad as a second course leaving diners wanting for MOAR !!!!11!1!11.

Then give it to them, later, the extra. If they want it, to take home.

The alternative to this is carbonara, but that's closer to a raw egg and wouldn't reheat very well.

[note to self: make sure you have enough disposable containers.]

Pasta made quickly, the usual way. This time, cut by hand. Shown here already a number of times. Surely you'd be annoyed to be shown it again. Use search up there for "pasta" or "atlas." I detached the Atlas from the work surface because I'm having more fun rolling out the pasta and cutting it by hand. I can do it now quite expertly.

Here I used thyme because I have it on hand and I haven't any basil. Thyme is not that great of an herb for this. Basil is the herb to use.