Homemade Fresh Pasta and Red Sauce

When it comes to pasta, most people either open a box from their supermarket or eat it in a restaurant. There's an aura of impossibility around the notion of making it from scratch in one's own kitchen; people think it must require years of training under the watchful eye of a stern, experienced Italian chef (or a grandmother) to make properly. The truth is, delicious and easy homemade pasta is achievable with minimal expense and a shockingly short list of ingredients.

Aside from flour, many recipes call for eggs and/or egg yolks plus olive oil, salt and water. For pasta to be dried and stored in the pantry, water is used in place of the perishable eggs.

Making most macaroni shapes is much easier with special equipment, but an extruder is probably beyond the reach of most home chefs. Lasagna noodles, fettuccini and other long noodles-even some filled pastas like ravioli-are, however, within your grasp, and most are made with essentially the same dough.

You probably have most of these ingredients in your house. Though mixing them together is actually simple, be ready to put in a little elbow grease. Unfinished pasta does not yield easily to the touch, so it's a tough mixture to work with.

Homemade Fresh Pasta

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

1 tsp. kosher salt

Splash of olive oil

Cold water, optional

Mix together flour and salt in a large bowl. Push aside the mixture to create a round empty space in the center of the bowl. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and make sure there is no shell. Scramble the eggs, then pour them into the center of the flour. Gradually mix in the flour from around the edges of the egg until it is all incorporated. Add a splash of olive oil. If the dough seems too dry, add some cold water, one teaspoon at a time, until the dough incorporates; if it is too wet, add more flour. You don't want the dough to be too sticky, or too crumbly and dry.

Knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth. Remember to push down and away with the heel of your palm. Turn the dough over on itself after each push.

Form a tight ball of dough, and seal it in Saran Wrap. Let it rest for about 30 minutes. This allows the moisture to be fully absorbed and ensures that the dough will be easier to roll out.

You can work with a rolling pin, or a hand-cranked pasta roller. The rollers produce smooth and elastic dough, and there are a variety of cutters available for them. It's definitely possible to roll out pasta with a pin, however and produce very nice results.

Work by tearing off a small ball of dough, about the size of a walnut. Flatten it with the palm of your hand on a lightly floured surface, then roll it out to your desired thickness.

This will cook faster than dried pasta, so keep a close eye on it. You can refrigerate unused noodles for about four days or freeze them for up to one month.

Red Sauce

2 large cloves of garlic, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 28-oz. cans of plum tomatoes

12oz. of Chianti

72oz. water

2 tbsp. dried oregano

2.5 tbsp. dried basil

1 tbsp. black pepper

1/2 tbsp. salt

3-4 tbsp. olive oil

Fresh basil, chopped fine

Pinch of sugar

In a sauce pot, cook onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until translucent and slightly brown. Add everything but the fresh basil and the sugar and simmer until the sauce reduces to the desired thickness. If it is too tart, add a pinch of sugar. Add the fresh basil at the end, just as you remove the sauce from the heat. Toss with pasta and serve.