BUCKWHEAT PASTA

Steps:

• Food-processor mixing recommended, following the directions on page 160.
• Pappardelle with Long-Cooking Savoy Cabbage, Bacon, and Mushroom Sauce (page 138)-a wonderful winter pasta.
• A tomato-based sauce, such as Mushroom Ragù (page 141) or Slow-Cooked Summer Tomato and Eggplant Sauce (page 259).
• Do not smother the pasta with too much sauce.
• A few spoonfuls of chopped walnuts lend marvelous texture and flavor to buckwheat pasta. Use about 1/3 cup of finely chopped walnuts for 1 pound of pasta; see below, for details on incorporating nuts into dough.
• Hand-cut lacce.
• Dress with Butter, Fresh Sage, and Walnut Sauce (page 120). For convenience, chop up the walnuts for the sauce when you're processing the nuts for the dough, but leave them larger, in 1/8- to-1/4-inch nuggets.
• Ground nuts can be incorporated into pasta doughs with great success. Try the ones I give here-walnuts in buckwheat dough, and hazelnuts in ceci dough-and experiment with other combinations, using almonds and pecans too. Follow these guidelines whenever you are adding nuts:
• For a 1-pound batch of dough, start with a generous 1/3 cup of whole nuts (or halves) to get 1/4 to 1/3 cup of ground nuts. First toast whole nuts lightly in a dry pan to bring out flavor. After they have cooled, pulse them in a food processor into tiny bits, smaller than 1/8 inch. This will take only 1 or 2 seconds-don't grind them into a powder. Pick out any remaining larger nut pieces; crush them smaller-or eat them.
• Mix the dough by hand or food processor, as usual. When you turn it out for final kneading, spread the dough into a small rectangle and sprinkle the nut bits on top. Fold the dough over the nuts, and knead as you would normally, distributing the nuts well, until it is smooth and shiny; then let it rest.
• To roll a dough with nuts using a pasta machine: Divide the dough in quarters and roll each piece slowly, at the widest setting, twelve times, folding and turning between rolls. Then roll through narrower machine settings. If you see any nut pieces that are making the dough tear, remove them. If a strip does tear, fold it over and reroll at a wider setting to repair it. Roll the dough as thin as possible (it will never be as thin as plain dough, however).
• Cut any dough with nuts by hand, crosswise, into lacce, or shoestrings (page 168). Or fold the strips and cut lengthwise to form pappardelle, as shown in the photos on page 166.