One of my Christmas gifts this year was an extruder for the KitchenAid mixer. After shoveling out paths through the snow in our back yard so our little doggie can run, I came inside and made homemade rigatoni. I’m not going to give you an exact recipe for the sauce, because it’s my own creation and I wrote nothing down. I think, however, all of you fabulous cooks can figure out what it takes to make it work.
I first plumped about 1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms with a claret and a tab of butter. Then I put them in the sauce after I added the tomatoes. I used two cans of organic diced tomatoes.
I know I’m doing this in reverse, but it’s so uncomplicated, I think you’ll be fine.
I started the sauce off with olive oil in a large skillet, one medium onion, cut into thin slices, and cooked until transparent. I diced up 4 cloves of garlic and put that in the skillet with the onions, and cooked for about 30 seconds before adding tomatoes and mushrooms.
I seasoned the sauce with salt, pepper and smoked paprika then I put in about 1/2 cup of heavy cream.
I served this dish with winter Parmesan from Di Palo’s down on Grand St. in NYC.
Enjoy!
Red Wine, White Wine, Fine Food Too! 
Di Palo’s rocks, and this dish looks very good. The pasta looks great; what kind(s) of flour, and how many eggs?
Generally, when I make, let’s say, fettuccine, I use 00 flour. For this I used the recipe that came with the machine. For about 1 1/4 lbs. of pasta you use 3 1/2 cups, sifted all purpose flour, 1 Tsp. salt, 4 eggs and 1 Tbsp. water. Put the flour and salt in the bowl of the mixer with paddle attachment, turn on to 2 and blend in eggs and water for 30 seconds. Then change to dough hook and run for 2 minutes. Take it out of the bowl (it should be crumbly), hand kneed, then roll into walnut size balls and drop into the extruder. Only drop the next ball in when you can see the auger. Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces.
Sounds good. Thanks for the details.
Reblogged this on Recipe Reblog and commented:
This recipe would be great for a dinner party. All you would need is a small side salad and glass of red wine.
You’re absolutely right! This pasta is very hearty and only needs a simple side salad (maybe some mandarin oranges mixed in with the greens) and a nice red wine!
I love the photo of the pasta– the shadows are beautiful.
Thank you!