Home Made Farfalle with Porcini, Mascarpone Tomato Sauce

I went to see Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Oh my!!! Now all I want to do is cut my hair into a Flapper's Bob, wear long beads, short skirts and rolled stockings, drink champagne from champagne saucers, drive around in my yellow Rolls-Royce (and not hit any one), live in a mansion in West Egg and have Leo DiCaprio all love sick over me (because he does love sick so well). And all of this has absolutely nothing to do with Farfalle, but I want that too Old Sport.



Home Made Farfalle with Porcini, Mascarpone Tomato Sauce
adapted from Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef

For the Fresh Pasta Dough:
500g plain flour (I use Tipo "00")
5 fresh eggs

For the Pasta Sauce:
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1 tablespoons olive oil
A pinch of dried red chilli flakes
1 teaspoons dried oregano
2 x 400g tins of crushed tomatoes
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 handful of basil, roughly chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
10g dried porcini, blitzed in a spice grinder or pounded in a motar and prestle
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 good handful of thyme picked

2 tablespoons mascarpone
Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper
fresh parmesan cheese, grated

Make the Dough:

Put the flour and eggs into a food processor and blitz until a dough ball forms around the blade. This should only take a minute or so. Add a little water if the mix is too dry, or a little more flour if the mix it too wet. Turn the dough out into a work surface and knead for a couple of minutes, until the dough is smooth and silky. Form it into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap. Let it rest in the refrigerator for an hour.

Shape the Dough:

Dust the work surface with a little flour.

Cut your dough into four equal potions. Cover three of the portions of the dough with a damp tea towel to prevent it from drying. Meanwhile, place the other quarter of dough on the dusted surface. Press and flatten it a bit with your fingertips.

Feed the dough through the machine at the widest setting. Then fold the dough twice towards the middle. press it with your fingertips and feed the dough through the machine at the widest setting again. Repeat this for two more times. Then feed the dough through the machine at a narrower settings one at a time. Keep doing this until the dough is about 1.5mm thick (or thin, depending on how you look at it). (I took mine down to the second highest setting on my machine.)

Use a pasta cutter or a knife to cut nice lines on your pasta sheet and create long rectangles (3cm x 4cm, bigger or smaller as you please) out of it. Pinch each rectangle in the middle giving you that unmistakable bow-tie shape.

Place your farfalle on a board dusted with semolina flour. This will prevent the farfalle from sticking together.

Let them dry for at least 20 minutes before cooking. 

Make the Sauce:
In a thick-bottomed pan, gently fry the garlic in the olive oil, and then add the chilli, oregano, porcini powder, thyme and tomatoes.

Bring to the boil and then simmer gently for an hour. Add the vinegar and season with salt and pepper (or more chilli flakes if you wish).

Now add the mascarpone and fresh basil.

Meanwhile cook the farfalle in boiling salted water until cooked (only a few minutes.)

Add the pasta to the sauce and toss. Serve immediately with an extra drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle with parmesan.