Noodles with Tomato Vegetable Sauce Recipe

Noodles with Tomato Vegetable Sauce

Fresh homemade wide noodles, topped with tomato sauce with a classic vegetable, herb, and spice mixture.
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Servings 2 people

Equipment

  • Digital kitchen scale (optional)
  • Stand mixer with dough hook (optional)
  • Pasta roller (or rolling pin)
  • Pasta cutter (or just a knife)
  • Pasta drying rack (optional)

Ingredients
  

Pasta

  • 2 large eggs (room temperature)
  • 1-1/4 cups flour (all-purpose, seminola, "00", or blend) 163 grams
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • extra flour and olive oil for making and cooking pasta

Sauce

  • 1 medium carrot
  • 1 stalk celery
  • 1/3 medium yellow onion
  • 1/2 medium green bell pepper
  • 1 tbsp olive oil for cooking vegetables
  • 1-1/2 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 14-1/2 oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 tsp tomato paste
  • 2 tsp fresh thyme
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp ground oregano
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
 

Make pasta

  • Measure or weigh out the flour for your pasta recipe in the bowl for your mixer.
  • Add the eggs, olive oil and salt.
  • Mix the ingredients: You can just run the dough hook at low speed. Stop the mixer a few times and use your spatula to push the flour into range of the accumulating dough and the hook. Be sure you push the spatula down under to the center of the bowl so stuff won’t stick there.
  • Once a dough forms, use the dough hook to knead it. If the dough creeps up the hook so it’s just spinning, stop the mixer and push the dough off the hook. If you want, you can put the dough on a floured surface and knead it by hand. Knead 3 to 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and stretchy.
  • Put the dough on a floured surface and use floured hands to shape it into a ball.
  • Wrap the ball in wax paper and chill in the refrigerator. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes or up to a day.
  • Take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it come back to room temperature.
  • Break the dough into pieces about the size of ping pong balls. Shape each dough ball into a flat rectangle about the size of a credit card, and flatten one edge so it can go into the rolling machine. Flour your counter generously, pat the dough on the flour, and brush it off.
  • Run your dough roller at a fairly low speed (4). Start with the roller on the first setting, and run the dough through once. In the next few steps, any time the dough starts to feel sticky, pat it on the floured counter again, and brush it off again.
  • Fold the dough in half and flatten the fold. Run the folded dough through again on setting 1. Fold and roll several times, and then run it through setting 1 again once or twice just for good measure.
  • After setting 1 comes setting 2. Run the dough through setting 2 several times. Keep advancing through the settings. As soon as the dough comes through smooth and flat, advance to the next setting, otherwise run the same setting again. For these noodles, I stopped after setting 7. You might make the noodles thicker or thinner, depending on what you’re doing with them.
  • Make a noodle out of each ball. Hang the noodles on a rack as you finish them.
  • Run the noodle through the noodle cutter just like the noodle roller. Catch the cut noodles with your hand and put them back on the rack. Hang up the noodles on a rack for up to a few hours. After a few hours, you can store them in an airtight container for a few days. If you don’t have a rack, cut them in groups into 5″ to 8″ pieces, and spiral each group into a “nest”.

Make sauce

  • Rinse all your vegetables and herbs. Cut the vegetables into 1/4″ pieces and put them into a bowl or onto a plate. Pull the leaves off the herbs and chop finely.
  • Heat about one tablespoon of olive oil in a dutch oven on medium heat; just enough to coat all the vegetables.
  • Season the vegetables with salt and pepper, and cook until the onions become slightly translucent.
  • Add the garlic. Continue to cook until the onions are translucent.
  • Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, 1/2 cup water, thyme, oregano, fennel seeds, bay leaf, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover the pot. Simmer 30 minutes or longer to allow the flavors to meld.

Cook pasta

  • Bring at least three quarts of water to a full boil in a covered pan. Put about 1/4 cup of salt in the water. Remove the cover when the water starts to boil.
  • Carefully lower the pasta into the boiling water. Lower the heat just enough to keep the water boiling fully without being crazy. Use a big spoon to move the pasta around so it won’t stick. Cook fresh pasta about 90 seconds or until it’s “al dente”.
  • Dump the pasta and water from the pan into a colander. Don’t turn the heat off on the burner as you pick up the pan; just turn it down to low. Shake the colander to remove excess water.
  • Put the pan right back onto the hot burner. Quickly dump the colander back into the hot pan. It will steam for a few seconds. As soon as it stops, immediately take it off the burner.
  • If you'd like, stir in a couple of teaspoons (or more) of olive oil if you like to keep the pasta from sticking.

Assemble dish

  • Put the pasta on the plate with tongs and spoon the sauce on top.

→ Step by Step Instructions