Family Tradition

Brandon Pompliano was a passionate student of his families cooking tradition which led him to explore a culinary path. He studied at the Culinary Education Center learning all aspects of prepping, cooking, & serving food as well as other skills which prepared him to cook in restaurants and continue his education in Hospitality Management. After years of working in fast passed and stressful kitchens, Brandon came to the tough conclusion that culinary wasn’t going to be his lifelong occupation, but would still remain a passion and skill used to create dishes for himself and love ones. Brandon hopes to pass down the skills and tradition he was taught during his journey to his kids.

A particular food that contributes to tradition in my family is fresh pasta. We consume fresh pasta on many Sunday’s with a fresh pot of sauce, hearty meatballs and the occasional braciole. It’s a dish which my eyes have witnessed being made countless of times in many delectable ways. Pasta is an essential part of my family because it not only maintains tradition but it brings my family close together. Preparing and cooking fresh pasta is a skill which is passed down from generations and it was recently my turn.
Fresh pasta was established in my family long before I was a baby in stinky diapers but almost as soon as I was ready to eat baby food my mother was feeding me it. I was told she would make baby food from the families large pasta dinners by putting it in the blender. Her pasta dinners consisted of a full pot of sauce, a few LBS of fresh pasta and about twenty large meatballs. Growing up in a house which was always scented with the aroma of sautéed onions and garlic engaged a response to develop an understanding on how to prepare food.

I was taught from my mother that a great pasta dish is only as good as its gravy or sauce as well as the quality of the pasta. My mother prepares the meal by starting the sauce first. In my family my mother calls the marinara sauce and my father calls it gravy. For some reason I didn’t realize this until I was around 20 years old and I was calling it sauce and my father was calling it gravy. I always thought of gravy as a sauce served with turkey. With this being my story we will call it sauce. A great sauce starts off with a good olive oil. We use an olive oil called Filipe Berio, it’s imported from Italy. My mother heats Filipe (sorry Filipe!) to just before the smoking point and then adds 1 large small diced onion. As soon as the onions hit the hot oil they immediately make sizzle and cracking noises. The air becomes scented with a strong odor that triggers a hunger sensor in my mind. If the pan seemed to hot and the oil was smoking she slightly turned down the heat. When the onions have reached a translucent look and have softened she adds the minced garlic. Minced refers to the word meaning very small.
The smell of the sweet pungent wine reducing in the pot with the onions and the garlic is heavenly. As the wine reduced to about half my mother turned down the flame and added in her dried oregano and the diced seeded fresh tomatoes. To seed the tomatoes she cut them in half and pressed them over a wired strainer into a bowl. After they were seeded she small diced them. See would let the sauce simmer for hours while she prepared the fresh pasta.

I was taught that preparing pasta calls for three factors. The first factor is extremely simple and only consists of three ingredients; all-purpose flour, organic eggs, and water. She starts out by making this mound of flour on the counter with a well in the center. She then takes the organic eggs, cracks them into the well and starts beating them with a fork until their incorporated with the flour. After that she uses her hands. Now my mother seems to love this part. She rants about her muscles being big and how good she looks for her age. We’ll of course I agree with her! There are two things that any smart person shouldn’t mess with and that’s your mom and the person making your food.
After the flour and organic eggs seem to be forming the dough, my mother would let me try. I guess she felt I couldn’t mess the dough up from here. As I finish kneading the dough it becomes elastic and sticky. I then wrap it in plastic wrap and allow it to rest for 30 minutes in room temperature. When we come back to make the pasta the dough is nice and silky soft. This is a true indicator it’s ready to be cut and rolled.

The second factor to making pasta is the equipment. Making the pasta can be done mostly by hand on a table or counter but in order to roll it out my mother uses a pasta machine. This pasta machine is a hand crank machine but there are plenty of options to choose from. This one is the most affordable version and it’s been in my family for centuries. It always reminds me of the stories my father used to tell me about my grandpa making pasta every Sunday before I was born. He actually used to roll the pasta out and lay it on the bed. I’m pretty sure this is when they lived in a smaller apartment in Hoboken when space was limited. Either way pasta made in bed seems crazy to me.

Before rolling the pasta, it needs to be cut into four pieces. It’s important to only use one piece at a time so the others need to be rewrapped in plastic wrap and put to the side. Next we take the piece of dough and flatten it with the palm of our hands. The piece should now be slightly thicker in the middle then on the edges, almost like a small homemade burger. Before rolling the dough into the machine, the machine needs to be set on the widest setting so that it can flatten the dough without tearing it apart. This step took a couple practices with my mom before I got used to it. After flouring the machine and checking it for dough from the last pasta making session, it’s now time to roll it through. Once the dough has passed through, it needs to be folded three more times and passed through the machine again. This process is done 5 more times at this width with the same folding pattern and then done 6 more times with the next thinnest press with the same folding pattern. Once the dough becomes thin enough to make the pasta the feeling of excitement arises. When choosing a shape for the pasta there’s so many types of cuts to choose from and really it’s all about the thickness of the pasta strands. I really like fettuccine because the noodles are a perfect size and can be pared with many dishes.

The last factor for making great homemade pasta is love. My mother explains that making the pasta with her hands gives her a sense of pride when she serves the food. I can very much agree with what she’s saying, there’s nothing better than seeing the important people in my life eating a dish I made from scratch. Making Sunday dinner from scratch will remain a tradition in my family for generations because it’s more than just food to us.

As times have become different than the traditional pasts of our roots, many of use can’t see through the commercial boxes of pasta on our local groceries stores. Yes, dry pasta is very convenient because it’s easily prepared in 10-12 minutes but the texture and taste as well as the family tradition and family time that accompanies fresh pasta makes it a superior choice for me.