I love Mario Batali. The Babbo cookbook is the 1st book of his I bought and I refer to it often. This recipe is from one of his newer cookbooks, Molto Italiano.

As talked about in my previous posts I cannot stand the taste of fish therefore I routinely substitute chicken or shrimp in fish recipes I come across. This recipe caught my eye and seemed like the perfect thing to prepare for a Sunday dinner. Here is the original recipe. And here is my tweak on it.

I started out my making the pasta dough. Mario calls for red pappardelle which is made by combining the eggs with 2 tablespoons of tomato paste. I used my stick blender to make sure the paste was thoroughly combined.

Next I added it to the flour mixture in my food processor and used the dough function until it came together. Once this is done you wrap it in plastic and let it rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting you can either start on the sauce or taste the red wine you will be using for the night. I opted for both. I use Mario’s tomato sauce recipe but make some slight changes depending on the type of dish I am preparing. For this recipe I started out by sauteing crushed red pepper, grated carrots and grated garlic in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. I then added about 2-3 tablespoons of tomato paste and cooked it until it was a deep dark reddish color. ( I saw Mario do this on Molto Mario one day )

I added a touch of red wine and cooked for about a minute or two more.

Okay looking back I added the red wine before the tomato paste and of course this makes better sense since you pick up all the baked on bits of garlic ,pepper and carrots.

After that you add two 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes, bring to a boil and simmer for about 1/2 hour. Depending on how much time i have I will sometimes cook it for about an hour and add 1-2 cups of chicken stock and simmer for about another 15 minutes.

Now it is time to roll out your pasta. I usually stop at the 2nd to last setting on my pasta roller. I find it is not too thin but still retains that bite.

After rolling it out you need to set someplace where it can dry. If you do not have a pasta rack you can drape the pasta over an oven rack in an UN-heated oven.

While the pasta is drying you can use this time to dice your potatoes and crush your garlic. Just add some olive oil and saute in a pan until the potatoes are crispy on the outside.

Set the potatoes aside and cut your pasta sheets into pappardelle strips.

Cook the pasta til al dente and combine with 1/4 cup of dry white wine,1/2 cup of sauce and about 3/4 of the potatoes ( save the other 1/4, which I did not do, to sprinkle over the finished dish) and the chicken. For the chicken I just sauteed it in olive oil and shredded it up. You can add rosemary at this point as well. Heat it till it just comes together and serve.

The only thing I would have done different is to save some of the sauted potatoes and sprinkle them over the finished dish and add some finely chopped rosemary. Other than that it turned out pretty well.