Homemade Linguine Pasta with White Clam Sauce: Learn how to make homemade pasta and toss it in a delicious white wine sauce in this recipe!
There is nothing, and I mean nothing like homemade pasta. It’s not only making it but it’s enjoying the fruit of your laboring once it’s all said and done. Pasta is one of those comfort foods that always seems to be eaten in bulk so whenever I’m making a fresh batch I tend to go a little heavy on the recipe to not only make sure I can feed everyone, but also to ensure I’ve got some leftover! If you’ve ever been to an Italian’s house for a get together, you’ll immediately notice there’s enough food to feed not only you but most of your distant relatives along with everyone else at the party. It’s in our blood to over make food!
How to Make Homemade Pasta:
When it comes to making homemade pasta, you’re going to have to give yourself sometime. This isn’t a recipe that you can just whip up 30 minutes before it’s ready to serve. No, you’ll probably need about an hour and a half, which isn’t too bad for something so delicious if you ask me. The first thing you have to consider when making homemade pasta is your ingredients, and what kind of noodle you want to make. More on ingredients later but for not let’s dip into the procedures. You first start by sifting together the flours onto a clean surface and then making a well into the center of it using your hands. Crack some eggs into the center of that well, add in some salt and then whisk the eggs using a fork. A rule of thumb is 3 eggs to 2 cups of flour, but you may or may not need to add a little cold water.
Once the eggs are scrambled you want to slowly start bringing in the flours until it’s combined, and your fork can’t do a thing. At this point I use a pastry knife to scrape the ingredients together off the clean surface and begin to knead it. I’ve been making homemade pasta for a long time and I have to say that kneading is probably the most important thing. Your ingredients have to come together so that the gluten can work, and you can stretch your dough without it ripping. I suggest kneading for 12-15 minutes. The dough will become lighter in color and you’ll definitely notice it. Wrap it up and let it refrigerate for 30 minutes to rest the homemade pasta dough.
Hopefully while your homemade pasta dough is resting you’ve selected a noodle, because it’s go time! Split the dough into 4 individual pieces and 1 at a time sprinkle with flour and flatten out with your hand as best you can. Now, run it through your hand crank pasta machine on setting zero, which is the widest. After you’ve run it through, do it 2 more times on that same setting. Now, let’s go a little thinner so go to setting 2 and run it through 3 times. Repeat that same process on setting 4 and then on setting 6. Setting 6 should be just about perfect as far as thickness is concerned. They say you should be able to notice silhouettes of things when looking through your homemade pasta while holding it up. If you’re there then wonderful, let it sit lightly dusted with flour on a clean surface so that it can dry out a bit, I’d say 15 minutes.
When all of your homemade pasta is rolled out, and they’ll be long, you then want to slice it up into 12-14-inch-long pieces. Those individual pieces are what will be run through your noodle attachment. I clearly used linguine in this recipe because it’s just my favorite. Not too thin, not too thick, it’s perfect! Once all of your homemade pasta has been run through the noodle attachments you can dust them with flour and ball them up and set them on a clean surface or you can hang them on a pasta dryer if you have one.
What is Semolina Flour?
I’m partial to using a combo of semolina flour and bread flour, along with eggs and salt. I use bread flour because it’s high in protein which means it can get super glutenous, which also means it can stretch without breaking. With pasta you are stretching and pulling so this is vital to ensure things won’t rip and break when you are running it through your pasta maker.
How to cook Fresh Pasta:
One of my absolute favorite tools in my kitchen is my Franke Pot Filler. Not only is it absolutely gorgeous but it is incredibly functional. I like it more than my knives, I like it more than my micro plane, I LOVE THIS THING! No more carrying super heavy pots filled with water over to the stove. We have the Franke Gooseneck Pot filler which matches with our sink faucet and water purifier faucet, it’s beautiful! So, once you’ve filled up your pot with the pot filler you want to bring it to a boil. Once the water is boiling you then want to pour in some salt. As a rule of thumb, the water should taste like the ocean. Yup, that salty. Add in however many noodle bunches you would like to eat and cook them for 2-4 minutes. The easiest way to monitor this is that your noodles will all float to the top when they’re done cooking. Make sure your noodles are al dente, or slightly crunchy, because they will cook a little further when you toss them around in the hot white clam sauce.
Once your noodles are done bring them over to the sink to drain. Thank goodness for the Franke roller mat! It rolls right over top of my sink so all I have to do is set my colander on it and strain the noodles without me bending over holding a super-hot heavy pot. It saves on my back like no other, and I’m 6’2 so it’s a huge help. Not only do we use it as a strainer, but it makes an awesome dish drier as well as a hot pad to ensure your pans don’t burn up your table or countertops. Toss the noodles quickly in a small amount of olive oil so they don’t stick to each other.
Making the White Clam Sauce:
White Clam sauce is incredibly easy to make and just so dang flavorful. I know there are fresh clams still in the shell but that is more for garnish than anything else. Start off the sauce by cooking some shallots and garlic in some butter on medium heat until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Next you want to deglaze with some white wine and cook it down until there is about ¼ cup of it left in the pan.
It’s now time to add in all of your chopped and whole clams all in juice and cook for 2 to 4 minutes. Canned clams are already cooked so you just want to heat them up, so be sure to not over cook them or else they will turn into chewing gum. Add in some parmesan cheese, your pasta, season with salt and pepper and serve away. I boiled the fresh clams and put them on top along with some more parmesan cheese, parsley and some crushed red pepper flakes. This white clam sauce is just so good and so easy to make!!
If you are looking to make a smaller batch of pasta than be sure to check out this Fresh Pasta Dough Recipe that serves about 1/2 of this one. In addition, here is an awesome rendition of Linguine with Creamy White Clam Sauce that has tomatoes and herbs in it!
Linguine and White Clam Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
For the Homemade Pasta:
- 2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
- 2 ½ cups of semolina flour
- 7 eggs
- pinch of sea salt
- cold water
For the White Clam Sauce:
- 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 3 finely minced cloves of garlic
- ½ peeled and small diced shallot
- 1 cup of dry white wine
- 8 ounces of chopped clams in juice
- 8 ounces of whole clams in juice
- 3/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
- 12 cooked fresh clams
- 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes for garnish
- sea salt and cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
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Sift together the flours onto a clean surface and then form a well with it.
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Add the eggs and salt to the center of the well and whisk with a fork until combined and then slowly begin to add in the flour from the edges.
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Once the egg and flour are combined used a pastry knife to scrape the surface to bring it all together to form a dough.
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Knead for 12 to 15 minutes before wrapping in plastic and chilling in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
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Remove the plastic from the dough and cut it into ¼’s.
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Lightly flour ¼ of the dough and lightly roll it out. Run it through the hand crank pasta maker on the 0 setting and run it through 3 times.
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Turn the crank to 2 and run it through 3 times. Repeat the same process on setting 4 than setting 6. Dust with flour and rest the dough on a clean surface for 10-15 minutes
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Cut the dough ever 15”-18” inches long, dust it with flour on both sides and then run it through the linguine attachment. Dust again with flour and form it into a small ball and place it on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and rest it for 15 more minutes so that it dries out.
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Boil in a large pot of boiling salted water and strain. Set aside.
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Clam Sauce: Heat a large skillet over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of butter and cook the garlic and shallots for 3 to 4 minutes or until lightly browned.
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Deglaze with white wine and cook until there is a bout ¼ cup of wine left. Add in the clams and cook for 3 to 4 minutes before finishing with the remaining butter and ½ cup of parmesan cheese.
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Add in the noodles, season with salt and pepper and serve with fresh clams, parsley and red pepper flakes in an oversized bowl. Enjoy!
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