Pasta

OA few months ago, I picked up a hand-operated pasta machine by Imperia. It's a pretty neat device that comes with all you need in the box to make roll pasta dough. It comes with an attachment through which you pass the flattened sheets to make spaghetti or fettuccine.

The machine's easy to use and easy to clean. You can hand-cut the sheets to make pappardelle or tagliatelle. I'm also fond of using a sharp-edged mug to cut out circles of pasta to use in making ravioli.

Here's a recipe for a basic, egg pasta. I'll use the dough hook on a KitchenAid to do the heavy lifting and then knead the rest out on a granite counter-top or wood cutting board.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour (plus more as needed)
2 eggs plus 2 yolks
3 tablespoons of water
1 generous pinch of salt

Directions:
Whisk together eggs, yolks, water, and salt. Combine with flour in standing mixer and let it run until most of the mixture forms into a ball. Knead the rest together until it reaches a uniform consistency. It should be kinda dry to the touch. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and let it sit for about 30 minutes.

Start boiling a pot of water.

Rip off a chunk the size of an apricot or a plum tomato an run it through the machine on its widest setting. Fold it in half, spin it 90 degrees and run it through the machine again. After you do this a few times, then run it through again and change the thickness setting each time until the pasta's as thin as you want it.

If you don't have something to use to dry the pasta, make sure you dust it with flour so it doesn't stick. The dough will roll out into thin sheets. The machine comes with attachments for linguine, et al, but you can get creative. Cookie cutters and coffee mugs work well for cutting out pieces for ravioli or tortellini.

By now, your water should be boiling. Salt it, or do whatever you typically do before cooking pasta, and toss in your fresh and tasty stuff, but keep in mind that fresh pasta only takes a few minutes to cook.

Stuffed Cornish Game Hens

I often stop by the grocery store without any particular reason. I aimlessly walk down the aisles, mill around the butcher section, and haunt fresh produce. On these little vacations amidst the pleasant hum of industrial refrigerators and stark sterility of the aisles, blanched white by overhead fluorescent lights, I keep out an eye for anything new on myriad of shelves. On one of these many excursions, while I marveled at the plethora of frozen butterball turkeys remaining from Thanksgiving and waiting for Christmas, I found a cache of frozen Cornish Game Hens.

I'd been academically curious in Cornish Game Hens since I learned of their existence at some point during college. A quick Google search taught me that the bird emerged in the middle of the 20th century after the creative breeding of two different kinds of chickens by a Connecticut couple. While my bias belies my Connecticut Pride, I was interested in the idea of a kind of personal-sized whole chicken.

I could go on, but I'm probably the only person who'd find further musings interesting. Anyway, I roasted two stuffed Cornish Game hens with a cranberry and blueberry compote spiced with cinnamon and juniper and an accompanying sauce of the same.



Compote and Sauce:

Gear:
Medium-sized saucepan
Chinoise

Ingredients:
1 cup of fresh cranberries, washed
1/2 cup of fresh blueberries, washed
1 tablespoon of dried juniper berries
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup of maple syrup

Bruise the juniper berries, gently crush them to release their flavor, then toss everything into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and let simmer for 45 minutes while occasionally stirring. Some of the cranberries and blueberries will rupture, which is great. When the sauce thickens a bit, strain it through a chinoise and crush the berries with a spoon over another saucepan to collect the juices. Spoon out the remaining berry skins and set aside for a garnish. They'll form a a syrup, which you'll need gently to heat and stir until the syrup thickens.

Stuffed Cornish Game Hens:

Gear:
Roasting Pan or rimmed baking sheet

Ingredients:
2 Cornish Game Hens
1/4 stick of butter
Handful of choice fresh herbs like rosemary, sage, basil, or any combination thereof, or whatever you prefer
2 handfuls of fresh cranberries, washed
1 green apple, seeded, skinned, and chopped,
2 slices of rich egg bread like Challah or Brioche, cubed and toasted
1/2 cup of roasted chestnuts, canned, or simmered in chicken broth and rosemary, shelled, and choped
2 handfuls dried sweetened cranberries
2 handfuls raisins
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch allspice

Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Wash and pat try the birds, both the outside and inside cavity. Make an herb butter by chopping the herbs and mashing them up in the butter. Coat the inside of the bird with the herb butter. Massage the bird in such a way that you loosen the skin from the meat and get a healthy amount of herb butter between the skin and the meat. Coat the outside of the bird as well. Combine the stuffing in a bowl and stuff the two birds then truss them. You'll have extra, so you can toss that into a small casserole dish or bread pan, then add about 1/2 cup of water or chicken broth. Cover with aluminum foil and put into the oven with the bird. After about 1 hour, raise the temperature to 400° F and finish for 15-20 minutes to brown the skin. Roast until the internal temperature of the bird hits 180° F. Remove the bird and the dish of extra dressing (yes, dressing. Stuffing is in a bird, dressing is cooked outside the bird).