Mario Batali shares simple pasta recipes

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium heat. Add the onions, celery, and garlic and sweat until translucent but not browned (about 5 minutes). Add the meat. Brown the meat, but keep stirring to keep it from sticking. Add the tomato paste, wine, and milk. Bring just to a boil, then simmer. Add the thyme. Continue simmering for 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours. Add salt and pepper.

Boil a large pot of water. Add salt.  

Heat the ragu in a saute pan.

Take a sheet of your basic rolled-out pasta dough. Let dry for three or four minutes. Roll up like a cigar, gently to prevent the sheet from sticking to itself. Slice pasta every quarter of an inch. Shake out each slice.  

Drop your cut pasta into the boiling water. Cook until tender, when the pasta starts to float (2 or 3 minutes). Lift it out from the water with tongs and drop into your saute pan. Coat. Sprinkle with grated Parmigiano and serve.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Cook, stirring, until light golden brown, 6 to 7 minutes.

In another saucepan, heat the milk until just about to boil. Add to the butter mixture, 1 cup at a time, whisking constantly until very smooth, and bring to a boil. Cook, whisking always, until thickened, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Season with salt and nutmeg.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Divide the pasta dough into 8 portions and roll out into sheets. If using a machine, roll out each one on the thinnest possible setting. Let each sheet dry on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes.  

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add 2 tablespoons of salt. Nearby set up an ice bath; add the oil. Drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook until tender (about 1 minute). Transfer to the ice bath to cool, then drain on kitchen towels, laying the pasta flat.

Assemble the lasagne in a 10-by-20 inch lasagne pan. Spread a layer of ragu over the bottom and top with a sprinkling of Parmigiano, a layer of pasta, a layer of besciamella, another layer of ragu, a sprinkling of Parmigiano, and pasta. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of pasta topped with besciamella and a sprinkling of Parmigiano.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until the the edges are browned and the sauces are bubbling.

Grind the meats. Cook the pork and chicken in the butter over a low heat in a saute pan.  Add the prosciutto and mortadella. Cook slowly for another five minute. Cool.

Transfer to a bowl. Add the eggs, the cheese, and the nutmeg. Mix and refrigerate until ready to use.

Make a mound of the flour, create a well in the middle, add the eggs, and mix with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour. (Or mix all together in a Kitchen Aid mixer.)  If too dry, add a fourth egg yolk. If still too dry, add the white. Once it forms a ball, knead for fifteen to twenty minutes. Wrap in plastic and rest for at least thirty minutes.

You can now cut off a portion (about a quarter) and roll out on a pasta machine.  Or you can roll it out by hand, using a wooden board and a wooden rolling pin.  Flour the board and roll the dough out in one direction.  Flip and roll out in the other.  Flip and turn ninety degrees, and so on.  The idea is to stretch the dough until it’s very thin:  thin enough that you should be able to see the grains of the wooden board through the sheet.