I was recently prompted to write about why I cook, and it took me a good amount of introspection to answer that question. I love to cook for a lot of reasons, but I think what drives me to the kitchen most frequently is the desire to reconnect with recipes past. Making extracts, breads, hard cider, bitters, I’ve been slowly trying to make my way through old recipes I’ve found archived in vintage cookbooks and dishes that have been handed down through my family. I love the idea that someone else, many years ago, was standing in the same position, mixing the same ingredients, kneading the same type of dough in the same rhythmic motion, and enjoying the same fruits of the earth just as I’m enjoying them, right in that moment. That’s a large part of why I love delving into traditional Greek recipes, just imagining the same type of stew on the table through generation after generation brings me such a strong sense of contentment that I find it difficult to put down into words.
I never really got to know my grandparents, my Yiayia and Papou passed away in Greece when I was very small, and my Hungarian Grandmother passed away from lung cancer shortly after moving to Oregon to be closer to us when I was about 7 years old. I didn’t get to spend much time with them during their time here, but after years of hearing stories about them I feel like I know the eccentricities of each of them.
And when I make their old family recipes, I like to imagine them going through the same motions, stirring, tasting, kneading, sprinkling. I imagine them doing the same in their own kitchens, my Papou and Yiayia’s tiny rural island kitchen in Greece, and my Grandma and Grandpa’s teensy beach bungalow on the shores of Lake Michigan.
I’d heard stories about my Yiayia making hilopites from scratch, which are these insanely tiny square cut noodles, and after years of enjoying freshly made pasta from various Italian restaurants, I finally decided to try my hand at pasta-making myself. I was fairly intimidated and had somehow gotten it into my head that making pasta dough was an extremely difficult undertaking, which turned out to be entirely untrue. It’s not the making of the pasta dough that’s the hard part, it’s the shaping that can get tricky, depending on the type of pasta you’re trying to make.
I decided to make one of my favorite pastas, orecchiette, which is a noodle that is shaped by hand. I used this helpful video as a guide, and after about a dozen weirdly-shaped test circles, I was popping out disc after disc of orecchiette. I made a roasted tomato and red wine sauce to go with them and topped it with a pan-fried herbed and buttered leg of chicken. It made for an amazing meal full of complimentary flavors, one that is going to become a staple in our kitchen, and pasta-making is a skill that I certainly plan on passing down to my own children (someday).
Homemade Orecchiette With A Roasted Tomato Red Wine Sauce & Herbed Pan-Fried Chicken
Ingredients
Homemade Orecchiette Pasta
- 1 and ½ cups semolina flour
- 1 and ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs whisked slightly
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup water
Roasted Tomato Red Wine Sauce
- 16 roma tomatoes cut in half with seed pulp scooped out and discarded
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons pepper
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2/3 cup Swanson chicken broth
- 3/4 cup cream
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 teaspoon basil
- ½ teaspoon thyme
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- ½ teaspoon pepper
Pan-Fried Herbed Chicken
- 4 chicken legs with thighs attached skin on and bone in
- 6 tablespoons of butter
- 4 tablespoons of olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 teaspoon sage
- 1 teaspoon savory
- 1 teaspoon oregano
Instructions
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Begin by making the orecchiette. Mix together the dry ingredients until well blended. Pour them into a mound on a large flat working surface. Make a hole in the center of the mound that is deep and wide, but with high edges so that when you pour the liquid ingredients into the hole they do not overflow and run down the sides of the mound. Pour the liquid ingredients (eggs, olive oil, water) into the hole and use a fork to gently begin whisking in the hole to slowly incorporate the dry ingredients until the mixture in the center becomes thick.
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Once it thickens, give it a good few whisks into the entire pile of dry ingredients and then begin kneading the mixture. Knead the mixture for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is elastic and bounces back within a couple seconds after you poke it. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 1 hour.
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Roll out the dough in a rectangle until it is about 3/4 inch thick. Cut it into 1-inch wide strips, and roll the strips between your palms so that they round out a bit into a rope of dough. Cut a 1-inch square from the strip. Shape the square into a sphere, and place it on your work surface. Run a butter knife’s serrated edge over the sphere while pressing down so that it curls up a bit around the knife.
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Take the curled sphere and invert it over the tip of your thumb to form a saucer, then set it on a wire rack to dry. This video helps give a good visual for the shaping technique; they go over it at about 8 minutes in.
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Repeat the process until you’ve used up all the dough. Allow the orecchiette to dry for an hour. To prepare, cook in boiled water for 10-15 minutes or until softened and cooked through. Any orecchiette that you are not going to immediately prepare will keep for a long time if kept in a sealed bag or jar in the freezer.
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Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lay the tomato halves on a baking sheet and drizzle and rub them with the olive oil, then sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Roast them in the oven for 1 hour, then reduce the oven’s temperature to 300 and roast for an additional 30 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool until warm enough to handle.
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Place the roasted tomato halves in a blender with the remaining ingredients and blend until a puree has formed. Pour the sauce into a medium-sized saucepan and keep warm over the lowest heat setting on the stovetop, stirring every 10 minutes, until heated through, then serve over pasta.
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In a small bowl mix together all of the herbs and spices until blended. Rub down the chicken legs with the olive oil, and then rub them down with the spice mixture. Set aside. In a large frying pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the chicken legs, two at a time, and lower the heat to medium. Pan fry them until they’re cooked through, about 10-13 minutes on each side. If the chicken begins to stick to the pan, add another tablespoon of butter to the pan. Remove them from the pan when their juices run clear. Serve immediately over the plated pasta and tomato sauce.
This is a collaboration between Campbells’ and the AOL Lifestyle Contributor Network. Compensation was provided by Campbell’s via AOL Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Campbell’s.
Looks delicious! I'm not quite brave enough to make my own pasta (yet), but the sauce and chicken look delicious.
Thank you so much Kathryn! Making pasta dough is really simple, and making the noodles can be really easy too if you pick a simple one like linguine, you'd just need to roll it thin and then use a pizza cutter to slice it into strips and voila! And boy does it taste so good fresh!
Gosh, such a lovely heritage to come from my dear. I've always loved cooking but for the entire opposite reason: because no one else in my family did. Both my parents came from large, Christian based families whose cooking was more out of necessity than enjoyability. Both my parents hated cooking. I grew tired of the same meals day after day so I decided to take things into my own hands and began to watch the foodnetwork. I've always been fond of learning and I figured this was a way to learn since I didn't have a personal teacher. If ever I have children, I hope I can start the tradition of handing down recipes with them.
Awww lady that is so awesome that you taught yourself! I know how great of a cook you are (you have even mastered the tenacious macaron!) and can't wait until Jerm and I move up to Oregon so we can cook together. We'll have the most delicious dinner parties anyone has ever seen!!
And isn't food network just the greatest? So helpful for getting a good visual on a new cooking tactic or recipe. Really fun to learn the science behind making some of the stuff, too.
how cute are these little pasta. beautiful story as well.
Thank you so much Dixya, they were really fun to make. I just got into the rhythm of shaping those little circles after a while haha 🙂
That looks wonderful. And I just loved this post. Always nice to hear why other people like to cook.
Thanks so much Alida, that is so nice of you to say 🙂 You know, I always like hearing about why people like to cook, too. I think that would be a great comment prompt for my next giveaway, it would be so interesting to read through everyone's responses.
I'm a little bit like Jade above because I just started to cook things that my family never did. Although we are huge foodies and loved eating at restaurants in L.A., we ate pretty normal at home. In fact, I have noticed a trend that everyone comes to me with their cooking questions! I'm by no means an expert, but I love rolling up my sleeves and trying something new! I have only tried making pasta twice, but it took so much work. I would gladly do it for this! And the chicken looks fantastic of course. 🙂 This is getting pinned way up high on my to cook list. 🙂
Thank you Diane! It is so awesome that you took it upon yourself to get creative and adventurous in the kitchen. Cooking can be such fun, and can really bring so much joy into your life. One of the main reasons my husband and I are going to Thailand for our honeymoon is because we love Thai food so much. Cooking and trying new foods can open up so many interesting doors, as you well know 🙂
What a fantastic trip! Coincidentally, it's one of the two options we have for our next big trip! If we do Asia, we are thinking about Thailand (we looove the food too!), the Philippines, and Malaysia. For South America, I am dying to visit Argentina. It's no mistake that these are all places with amazing food!
Gosh, this story is so beautiful! I've always been drawn to the kitchen, but I couldn't say why. My father is a great cook. My mom and I baked a lot when I was a kid. She worked nights, so I cooked a lot of dinners (from a box!) for my younger siblings growing up. I've longed to make fresh shaped pastas like orecchiette. It's too easy to just roll out the dough and cut it into strings, you know? I love a good culinary challenge. And the roasted sauce and the chicken, too? Girl.
Your younger siblings were lucky to have you making dinner for them 🙂 I think being an older sibling definitely helps encourage cooking at an early age, especially when you're doing a good amount of baby sitting for the littler ones. My mom worked during the day so we were lucky enough to be able to see her before and after school, and I'd always hang out next to her in the kitchen while she was cooking to watch what she was doing. It was so exciting to me! She never made pasta from scratch though, definitely didn't have enough time with three little ones running around. But it really was nice to try, and I definitely want to just cut it into strings next time haha. So much faster! I think I want to experiment with a flavored pasta dough next time, though, maybe with spinach or beets for some nice color, too.
Amazing! I've always wanted to make homemade orecchiette!
Thank you so much Chung-Ah!
Wow, this is incredible! I've made other homemade pastas, but never orecchiette. I believe orecchiette means "little ears" in Italian, and your pictures totally remind me of that. Excellent post!!
Awww thanks David! Yeah it's funny how they really do end up looking like tiny ears of pasta haha 🙂
I feel the same way about family and cultural food. Half of my family is American with a pretty midwestern palette, while the other half is a world away in South Korea. My Korean grandparents passed away when I was young and I definitely feel connected to them through food. I feel so lucky to come from a family of great cooks and food lovers.
This recipe looks amazing! I am so impressed by your orecchiette skills and that chicken leg looks perfect!
Its so wonderful how food can keep traditions alive and strengthen the connections to family members, both those that are still will us and those that have passed. I love Korean food and can only imagine how delicious your family's long-kept recipes must be. Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your story 🙂
OMG girl! This is driving me insane. This looks incredible and I would love to have this for Thanksgiving instead of the standard dinner!
Thank you so much!! I just love pasta with chicken, such a comforting dish.
What an incredibly appealing post – a true adventure in cooking – I look forward to finding a day when I have time to indulge in it!
Why thank you Cherie! If you give it a try sometime let me know how it comes out for you 🙂
i'm extremely impressed, eva! i've never even made regular pasta, much less specific shapes. bravo!
Thank you Grace! Once I got the hang of it they were pretty easy to shape. It just took a few mutant-looking ones to get the hang of it hehe
This is absolutely breathtaking! I've never made homemade orecchiette before and this dish as a whole is calling my name. Beautiful!
Thank you so much Kate! I am so glad you like it 🙂 It was really fun to make the pasta, I felt so accomplished after they were all done!
This dish is so beautiful. I am dying to get a taste of that sauce, yum 🙂
Thank you my dear!! I love wine in sauces, it just adds such a nice depth to the flavor and a wonderfully slight acidity.
You are like totally over the top. where do I start? everything looks positively TO DIE FOR! Your grandparents would be so proud. The orecchiette are gorgeous and I am inspired. But the chicken and tomatoe sauce-Oh, you are killing this!
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