California can be a land of abundance, and that usually means that people with gardens and fruit trees sometimes have more than they can handle. When that abundance means people offering (and sometimes begging) you to take some Meyer lemons off their hands, I’m happy to oblige. That’s exactly what  happened this weekend when my wife’s yoga partner come over for tea after their class. And when she mentioned that her 13 year old son was raising chickens and selling the eggs, I was happy to support a future interest in ag and told her I would buy a dozen. About fifteen minutes after she left, there was a knock at our door. She had returned quicker than expected with a bag of lemons and a dozen very fresh eggs.

 

Since the freshness of the ingredients were so high, I wanted to do something that would highlight them and immediately thought of a fresh egg yolk pasta with a lemon butter sauce. I usually use whole eggs and all purpose flour when making pasta, but I really wanted to take advantage of the color and richness of the yolks you get in farm fresh eggs. After a quick check on the interwebs I found a great piece on Serious Eats about pasta making that had the info I needed. Instead of the 2 egg 1 1/2 Cup flour ratio I typically use (from Pasta Tecnica by Pasquale Bruno, sadly out of print) I used the ratio reccomended by Serious Eats, 2 whole eggs, 4 egg yolks and 10 oz of flour. Throw everything in the food processor and spin till the dough comes together on the blade. Since farm eggs are not a uniform size like the ones you buy in the store, I did have to drizzle in a little water to bring it together. A quick couple of kneads and you have this:

Cut this in half and work through your pasta machine (that might be it’s own post, but in the meantime you can watch this video I did for Toque Blanche on making the dough and rolling it out. The most important part is to not be afraid of flouring the sheets if they are even the least bit tacky, and I find it very helpful to heavily flour the sheets when rolling them through the cutter to get your noodles.)

Get your water boiling and juice and zest a couple of lemons into a glass and grab a stick of butter. Take out a small heatproof measuring cup as well for your secret ingredient.

 

See how white that water looks? Right before the pasta is done you want to snag about a quarter cup of it with your heatproof measuring cup…that is your secret ingredient! Drain the pasta into a colander and return the pot to the stove over low heat. Add a few tablespoons of butter.

When that is melted, add some of the pasta water and the lemon juice and zest. Turn the heat up to medium low and allow to reduce a bit. The starch in the pasta water will help emulsify the sauce very nicely so that it clings to the pasta. Once the liquid has reduced and looks a little thicker, add in the pasta and keep turning with tongs.

Keep stirring until the past is coated, adding more butter if needed.

This fed a family of four and took, from making the pasta to eating, all of an hour and a half. My wife made some broccoli to serve with it, and of course you need lots of good parmagiano cheese and a little fresh cracked black pepper.

Be inspired by your ingredients, and have fun cooking!

Stuart