Handmade Tagliolini with Fresh Clams and Bottarga

In a medium bowl, blend the semola flour with eggs, and knead to reach smooth, soft consistency that holds its shape when shaped into a ball.

Continue kneading dough with your palm on floured working space.  Keep kneading until dough is soft, elastic, and compact.  Shape dough into ball, and cover with plastic wrap to maintain elasticity.  Allow to rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes.

Remove plastic wrap, and shape into a rectangle approximately the width of the pasta machine to be used.

Begin rolling out dough using prepared pasta machine, generously dusting machine with semola to prevent dough from sticking to pasta machine.  Flatten dough through machine until desired thickness is reached, adjusting knobs to make dough thinner each time it passes through machine.

Dust working space well with semola.  Once you have reached desired thickness, cut pasta dough into working sizes.  Place noodle cutter onto pasta machine, and pass each piece through to create noodles shapes.  Form into a nest shape, and rest on wooden kitchen board dusted well with additional semola flour.

Clean and scrub clams well. Peel and finely dice garlic clove. Finely mince parsley, and mix together with minced garlic. In a large, deep sauté pan, place cleaned clams, white wine, garlic and parsley blend, olive oil and one ladleful of cold water. If you like chili flakes, you can also add a small amount of chili flakes to this mixture.

Cover the pan, and allow to steam over medium heat until clams begin to open their shells, and their cooking liquid begins to release. As soon as clams begin to open, remove from heat, and set pan aside.

Boil a large pot of salted water, cook tagliolini until you reach al dente consistency. Cooking time should be approximately 2 minutes. Drain, and place into sauté pan with clam sauce, setting flame to high.

Toss well to combine pasta and sauce. Place a serving of tagliolini onto each individual serving plate, top with clams, and grate as much dried bottarga as you wish on top. Serve immediately.