Scott Conant Bolognese Food

SPAGHETTI WITH TOMATO SAUCE

Steps:

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil with about 3 teaspoons of salt.
• Meanwhile, put the tomato sauce in a large saute pan and cook over medium heat to further concentrate the sauce's flavors.
• Cook the spaghetti until just shy of tender. Reserve some of the pasta cooking water and gently drain the spaghetti. Add the spaghetti and a little of the pasta cooking water to the pan with the sauce; the starch and salt in that water will help the sauce adhere to the pasta. Add the basil, give the pan a good shake, increase the heat to medium-high, and let the pasta finish cooking in the sauce. The sauce should coat the pasta and look cohesive, and when you shake the pan, the sauce and pasta should move together.
• Take the pan off the heat and add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and butter. Using two wooden spoons (tongs can tear the fresh pasta), toss everything together well.
• Divide the pasta among serving bowls. Finish with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and serve.
• To peel the tomatoes, use a paring knife to cut a small x on each tomato. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil, and have ready a bowl of ice water. Boil the tomatoes for about 10 seconds, then plunge them into the ice bath. The shock of going from hot to cold should cause the skin to contract, making it easier to peel. Use your fingers or a small paring knife to pull the skin off. If the skin is stubborn, try boiling and shocking the tomato again.
• In a wide saucepan, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the tomatoes; be careful, as the oil may spurt. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes soften, 2 to 3 minutes. Lower the heat to medium and, using a potato masher, smash the tomatoes, really working the masher to break them up. If the consistency is thick or if they get too dry, add the tomato boiling water or reserved tomato juice to the pan. Cook, occasionally mashing and stirring, for 45 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove the oil from the heat and let the ingredients steep for 5 minutes.
• Strain the oil into the cooked tomatoes. Stir to combine. Remove the sauce from the heat. Taste and add additional salt, if needed. The sauce may taste spicy on its own, but it gets balanced when used with other ingredients, especially the pasta, butter, and cheese. The sauce will keep, covered and refrigerated, for 2 days. Reheat gently before serving.
• In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the "00" flour, semolina flour, and salt on low speed. Add the egg yolks, olive oil, and up to 1 1/3 cups water, adding the water a little at a time, and continue to mix on low speed. Once the flour is incorporated, increase the speed to medium-low and mix/knead the dough for 5 minutes.
• Lightly dust a work surface with a mix of "00" flour and semolina.
• Dump the dough out onto the work surface and knead by hand for a few minutes. Shape the dough into a rectangle, wrap it in plastic wrap, and let it rest for 1 hour.
• To roll and shape the dough, set the pasta machine on its widest setting. Lightly flour a rimmed baking sheet. Cut the pasta dough into 4 pieces. Work with one piece at a time and wrap the others in plastic wrap to prevent them from drying out. Very lightly flour the dough and stretch it by hand, then put it on the pasta roller. Run it through the pasta machine twice, starting at the longest setting. Fold it in half and run it through again, so the dough gets thinner each time and wipe the surface of the pasta for excess flour as you go. Run the dough through the machine a couple more times; this serves as a final kneading.
• Set the machine to the next level of thickness and run the piece of dough through again. Keep running the dough through the machine, adjusting the rollers to a thinner setting each time, until the sheet is 1/8-inch-thick; on most machines this means stopping at the 3.5 or 4 setting. Cut the sheet to lengths of about 12 inches. Then, using the linguine cutter, cut the sheet into strands. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.
• Dust the strands with a little flour (preferably a mix of the "00" and the semolina), and gather the strands into nests by wrapping them around your hand. (At the restaurant, we portion the spaghetti into 4-ounce nests.) Dust the nests with a little more flour, place on the baking sheet, and freeze until hard. (Once the spaghetti is rock-hard, it can be transferred to a freezer bag or other airtight container and kept frozen for up to 1 month.)
• You can also layer the sheets of pasta with semolina flour and cover them with plastic wrap while you get set up to cook them.

SPAGHETTI WITH TOMATO AND BASIL

Steps:

• In a wide pan over medium-high heat, heat 1/3 cup of olive oil until quite hot. Add the tomatoes, red pepper flakes, and season lightly with the salt and pepper. (I always start with a light hand with the salt and pepper because as the tomatoes reduce, the salt will become concentrated.) Using a potato masher, mash the tomatoes finely. (This will be easier to do as the tomatoes begin to heat up.) Cook the tomatoes for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tomatoes are tender and the sauce has thickened.
• Meanwhile, stack and roll the basil leaves into a cylinder and cut thinly crosswise into a chiffonade.
• Bring a large pot of amply salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti until just shy of al dente. Reserve a little of the pasta cooking water. Add the pasta to the sauce and cook over medium-high heat, gently tossing the pasta and the sauce together with a couple of wooden spoons and a lot of exaggerated movement (you can even shake the pan) until the pasta is just tender and the sauce, if any oil had separated from it, now looks cohesive. (If the sauce seems too thick, add a little pasta cooking liquid to adjust it.) Take the pan off of the heat and toss the butter, basil and cheese with the pasta in the same manner (the pasta should take on an orange hue) and serve immediately.
• Cook's Note: Here is a good tip for peeling and seeding tomatoes: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Have a large bowl of ice water nearby. Cut a small shallow X on the bottom of each tomato. Ease about 5 tomatoes into the pot and cook for about 15 seconds, and then promptly move them to the ice water. (Do this with the remaining tomatoes.) Pull off the skin with the tip of a paring knife. If the skin sticks, try a vegetable peeler using a gentle sawing motion. Cut the tomatoes in half and use your finger to flick out the seeds.

HOW TO BOOST THE FLAVOR OF PASTA

Steps:

• STEP ONE. Only partially cook dry pasta. In a pot of abundantly salted boiling water, cook dry pasta for only half or three-quarters of the recommended time. The timing depends on the brand, shape and size; I recommend reading the back of the package instructions. Tasting pasta is the best indication of doneness, and in this case, it should be too hard to eat, but soft enough that you can taste the dough.
• STEP TWO. Add the semi-cooked pasta to a pan sauce. Using a slotted spoon (for shaped pasta) or tongs (for spaghetti), remove the partially cooked pasta from the water, reserving the water for later use. Add the pasta to the pan of sauce. For example, when I cook spaghetti with clams, I saute the clams in olive oil, garlic and wine, and as they open and release their liquid, I transfer the semi-cooked pasta straight from the pot of boiling water in the pan with the clams.
• STEP THREE. Adjust the thickness of the sauce by adding the reserved water. Finish cooking the pasta in the cuisson (cooking liquid). Add the reserved water to adjust the thickness of the sauce. Reduce by simmering and season as necessary, bearing in mind that the pasta water you are adding to the pan is heavily salted. If you reduce it too much, the dish can get salty.

SPAGHETTI WITH SEAFOOD

Steps:

• Cook the clams and mussels with 1/2 cup water until cooked. Reserve the liquid. Remove the meat from inside the clams and mussels; discard the shells.
• In boiling salted water, begin cooking the spaghetti. Simultaneously, heat up the extra-virgin olive oil on medium-high heat in a large saute pan. Add the crushed red pepper and shaved garlic and slowly saute. Just when the edges of the garlic become lightly browned, remove the pan from the heat and add a large ladle (approximately 8 ounces) of the pasta cooking water to the saute pan. Put it back on the heat but do not increase the flame.
• When the pasta is three-quarters of the way cooked, remove from the boiling water to the saute pan. Reserve the cooking liquid.
• Continue cooking the spaghetti using the reserved pasta cooking liquid, as needed. Add more clam/mussels liquid to achieve creaminess. Just before the pasta is cooked, add the clams, mussels, squid, and shrimp. Finish cooking the pasta with all the seafood until al dente.
• Remove the seafood pasta from the pan and toss with the sea urchin. Serve immediately.