I knew Howard was going to have a hard day so I decided to make his favorite dish with the twist of making homemade spaghetti. I’ve had the KitchenAid pasta extrusion/meat grinder attachment for many years and used it to grind meat. A hairline crack had appeared in the housing and I didn’t think much of it about a year ago when I went to make fresh spaghetti. It wasn’t a pretty sight, plastic bits flying everywhere. Luckily, the internet provides lots of places to order parts and I replaced the housing. It wasn’t until today that I tried the extruded pasta again.
After reading many conflicting ideas about whether to use eggs or not, I forged ahead and made a basic egg dough, making sure it was on the dry side. After resting for a couple of hours I extruded it and hung it to dry. Labor intensive for sure, but I had the free time.
This dish is one I make without a recipe and my only change from the traditional recipe is adding chopped fresh tomatoes at the end. Basically I sauteed onions and garlic in a good amount of olive oil; add a little red pepper flakes; throw in clams; add white wine and a little clam juice from a bottle. Cook until the clams open. Toss in the tomatoes, some chopped parsley and the boiled spaghetti. Dress with a little olive oil and dig in.
Fresh spaghetti is more delicate and it was delicious, but I kind of missed that “toothiness” of the dry pasta. I must try this again with Carbonara!