Handmade Pasta with a Creamy Leek Sauce

Daria Souvorova

2 hours
serves: 8-12 people

Nico’s mentor is in town from France and had us over for a Guinea Fowl meal. It was delicious! We had to return the favor. So before sending him back to France, Nico and I decided to host him for a rather French meal.  To start our meal, we served a Terrine. I traditionally serve a Duck and Apricot Terrine, but decided to change it up a bit and served an Pork and Persimmon Terrine today. The star of the meal was our beautiful Lapin a la Moutarde (Rabbit in Mustard Sauce).  Generally, I serve the rabbit with some rice, but for this dinner I wanted something more luxurious, that could serve as a dish on its own. I paired the rabbit with a Leek and Creme Sauce Pasta (homemade pasta of course!) and Heirloom Carrots glazed in Honey and White Wine.

I love making fresh pasta, it is really not that hard, and is truly therapeutic! It is like edible play-doh! I love sending my noodles through the pasta machine! If you don’t have a pasta machine, you can do it the old fashioned way! Just roll the pasta out thinly and slice with a knife to make the noodles.

The benefit of fresh pasta is that you only have to cook it for a few minutes instead of the 10-14 minutes you have to cook dried pasta for! And it is so much more delicious!!

I wanted to make sure that the pasta paired well with our rabbit dish so I created the sauce with Dijon mustard, white wine, and heavy cream like the mustard sauce in our rabbit dish. It turned out wonderful, and so simple to make. Sometimes the simplest dishes are the most delicious!

We finished with my favorite dessert to make, the Cannelés Bordelais.

Ingredients:

• • • • • for the pasta:
        • 4 cups (480 g) flour*
        • 6 eggs
        • 8 tablespoons water
        • salt
        • for the leek sauce:
        • 2 leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced
        • 4 tablespoons butter
        • 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
        • 1 cup white wine
        • 6 sprigs thyme
        • 1/2 cup heavy cream
        • salt and pepper

      *note on flour: I use half semolina and half all-purpose if I want more sauce to stick to the pasta (great for tomato sauce) and Italian 00 flour when I want extra smooth noodles. In these photos, I am using the Italian 00 flour.

      1. 1. 1. For the pasta, place flour in volcano shape.
               Add salt and eggs to crater.
               Mix until ball forms, add water if needed.
            2. Knead 5 minutes.
               Form into tennis  sized balls. Rest dough for 1 hour.
            3. Dust machine with flour and pull  ball of dough through, folding  like a letter after each pass. I roll through three times or so until an even sheet is formed.
               Make setting smaller, to desired  thickness, roll through final time. I am fond of the “7” setting.
               Trim to the length of pasta you want to create (9-12 inches) and cover with towel.
            4. Repeat with remainder.
            5. Run through cutting roller. Dust  with flour to separate or hang on a pasta drying rack. With a rack, this can be done several hours in advance.
            6. When ready to serve, boil water. Cook 2-3 minutes.
            7. For the sauce: Melt butter in large pan and cook leeks until soft and translucent, but not browned, about 8 minutes.
               Add the mustard and season with salt and pepper, 2 minutes longer.
               Deglaze with white wine and add thyme. Simmer until the alcohol burns off and the sauce becomes thicker, about 5-8 minutes.
               Stir in creme and cook a few minutes longer if the sauce is too thin.
               Season with salt and pepper and stir the cooked noodles into the pasta to serve.
               Add a bit of pasta water as needed to combine.