230 replies to this topic

[Smithy]

Your leaky "volcano" sounds familiar. If I'm mixing by hand I use a big bowl with a flat bottom - can't count on my cutting board being warped enough.

Edsel beat me to it, but I'm going to repeat it anyway. In my one or two attempts to make pasta I've learned that, instructions or no, it's easier and less messy to mix the stuff in a bowl. I'm looking forward to this cookoff - been gone but now back, so I can get to it - and my motto is "purists may look the other way". I will be using my bread bowl.

Do try again, Kris! Seriously, your first attempt looked terrific even if it wasn't what you wanted to do!

[Genny]

Oh Kristin...(rubs back, dries tears) I'm so sorry you had such a fiasco! How utterly frustrating!! I am hoping to make Sam's Ricotta Gnocci sometime this week, it just sounds too good to not! I don't have a pasta maker, and although I'm sure pasta can be made without it, I'm not even going to try it this time around!

Let us know if you decide to get back on that horse and try to ride again. The second effort in NO WAY could be as bad as the first!

[Chris Amirault]

So I thought I'd post tonight's black pepper fettucini preparations. Here's the KitchenAid pasta maker attachment, well worth the cash, I'm finding:



The prep table, including the resting pre-made and -kneaded pasta dough (2 cups AP flour, 3 large eggs, salt, bit of water), lots of dusting flour, the pepper, and the very important Campari and soda for cook sustenance:



Finally, borrowed from the laundry room, the imported Italian pasta rack. I got it at Williams-Sonoma for $1,200, but sometimes we use it to dry underwear:



I won't bore you with umpteen shots of the dough getting folded and rolled and folded and rolled; suffice it to say that you can't do that too much. (I will also say that dusting the dough with flour also probably can't be done too much.) So, instead, here's the hairy-armed cook cutting some fettucini:



The finished product, ready for an enormous amount of extremely salty boiling water:



Finally, after being tossed in some garlic- and red-pepper-kissed EVOO, the aglio e olio fettucini on the table:

[snowangel]

Chris, thanks for the abbreviated tutorial. How much pepper?

[torakris]

let's talk about the dough....and the flour....

There is no all-purpose flour in Japan, it is either "strong" (bread flour with a protein content of 11% or higher) or "weak" (basically cake flour, they use it for tempura, that is a protein content of 8% or lower). The only flour I had in the house was a bread flour with 13.8% protein and a "weak" flour with 8%, I went with the weak stuff. COuld this have been part of my mistake?

Also I know there are some foods you just can't mess with on humid days, is this one of them? It was an extremely humid day on Sunday as a typhoon was approaching.
The same typhoon that is currently re-arranging my backyard....

[Chris Amirault]

Chris, thanks for the abbreviated tutorial.  How much pepper?

Probably about two tablespoons of pretty finely ground pepper. If you keep it too coarse, it gets stuck in the wheels and tears the dough.

Kristin, I'm not particularly capable of answering the flour question (I used all-purpose King Arthur, whose protein content I can't find on line, oddly), so I'll take a crack at the other question:

Also I know there are some foods you just can't mess with on humid days, is this one of them? It was an extremely humid day on Sunday as a typhoon was approaching.
The same typhoon that is currently re-arranging my backyard....

I really think that this might be one of the problems. I find that you have to flour pretty liberally to keep the dough moving through the rollers without sticking. That shot above of your torn dough looks the way that sticky dough looks when I don't flour enough. I don't think that a humid day makes it impossible; rather, I think that you just have to be sure to dust regularly.

[torakris]

I was really scared to use flour.
According to Mario's book:

As you work, dust the pasta sheet with a tiny pinch of flour only if it seems to be sticking- too much flour will dry out the dough.

My dough was really sticking to everything! it would get stuck to other pieces ofdough and there was no way to pull them apart. After getting a little more liberal with the flour it still was sticking...






I like the idea of blaming it on the weather

[snowangel]

I agree with Kris. We need to talk about flour. Everything I see is cake, AP or bread, and there is very rarely a mention of how much protein is in each flour.

For the "ideal" flour, any ideas on how to combine any of those to come up with the "ideal?"

[Chufi]

There is no all-purpose flour in Japan, it is either "strong" (bread flour with a protein content of 11% or higher) or "weak" (basically cake flour, they use it for tempura, that is a protein content of 8% or lower). The only flour I had in the house was a bread flour with 13.8% protein and a "weak" flour with 8%, I went with the weak stuff. COuld this have been part of my mistake?

I use Italian OO flour for fresh pasta, and I've read somewhere (although I don't remember where) that this has 7% protein, so I think you were right in choosing the 8% weak flour.

[Chufi]

Chris, the fettucine look fantastic.

And I love the way you serve your grated cheese..

[Chris Amirault]

Well, lessee.... Adam wrote this in his eGCI course:

One final note on flours and pasta-making. In Italy flour is classified as “Semolina” (Durum wheat flour) or “Farina” (soft wheat flour or a blend of the two). Italian flours are further classified numerically on the basis of refinement. “00” being the most refined, “2” being the least. The level of refinement also indicates the protein levels and, for most practical purposes, these indicate the level of gluten in the pasta dough (Durum wheat flours have a protein level of approximately 15%, by way of comparison.) “00” has a minimum of 7% protein, while “2” flour contains a minimum of 10% protein. It would therefore be logical to conclude that “2” flour would be more commonly used to make pasta because it would be able to form more gluten. Wrong. In the North of Italy were most pasta is made from soft wheat flour they mostly recommend “00” flour (as do most English language recipe books). The most common reason given for this choice of flour is that it produces a “more tender a pasta with a delicate flavour” and who am I to argue with that!

[Chris Amirault]

And I love the way you serve your grated cheese.. 

Yeah, our seventeen-person service staff was taking the week off for Labor Day, so our Swarovski crystal cheese bowl and serving shovel hadn't been cleaned and buffed. Thus: wax paper!

[Chufi]

And I love the way you serve your grated cheese.. 

Yeah, our seventeen-person service staff was taking the week off for Labor Day, so our Swarovski crystal cheese bowl and serving shovel hadn't been cleaned and buffed. Thus: wax paper!

hey, after making pasta, you already have enough washing up to do so I understand!

btw.. my husband is having dinner with his colleagues tonight and while reading this thread, I feel a real "I need to make stuffed pasta" urge coming on. So I might just have a raviolosolo party tonight. Let's see what I have in the fridge to make a nice stuffing..

edited to add: ok, it is 'tonight' and I did have my pastasession. I needed an excuse to try out my cute little new round pastacutter . Seriously, this pastamaking is addictive! And I'm getting better at it each time I do it. I also make less and less mess every time. Although today, it did not help that I dropped a whole bottle of olive oil onto my stone kitchen floor in the midst of the pastamaking process
Anyway, today's pasta: stuffed with chestnut-mushrooms, ham, parsley and ricotta, drizzled with basil tomato oil (that I made, fortunately, before I dropped the bottle).


The pasta was delicious. I wanted a change from the sagebutter, hence the basil oil. However I think the flavor of the basil sort of overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the stuffing.. This one might be better with just a little ricotta, butter and parmesan.

Because I had a lot of pasta left over, I decided to try something I once saw in a magazine: press leaves of basil between two pastasheets.

I think the leaves I used were much too big, also you have to be very careful not to roll them out too quickly or they will tear (as you can see mine did). I think this might work best for some kind of open ravioli or lasagne, where you can get a good view of the pattern on the pastasheets.
Has anyone ever tried this?

Edited by Chufi, 07 September 2005 - 10:39 AM.

[kanljung]

Chufi, your latest pasta looks really great, as did your previous one!

On the topic of flour: The last time I made fresh pasta, I had managed to find some De Cecco "00" flour. Before that I've been using a strong bread flour (12% protein content) with good results. Sometimes I've cut it with some durum wheat flour (12% protein). This, in combination with extensive kneading and folding has given me a very elastic dough. Tastewise, the pasta made on the"00" flour may have been somewhat better though.

[Chris Amirault]

Chufi, looks great! What would one now do with that basil-pressed pasta? Cut it? Into... papardelle?

[Chufi]

Chufi, looks great! What would one now do with that basil-pressed pasta? Cut it? Into... papardelle?

The pic I saw in the magazine had very large ravioli, with a small basil leaf pressed into the top sheet of each one. Sounds like a very fiddly thing to get right though.

[Susan in FL]

Because I had a lot of pasta left over, I decided to try something I once saw in a magazine: press leaves of basil between two pastasheets.

I think the leaves I used were much too big, also you have to be very careful not to roll them out too quickly or they will tear (as you can see mine did).  I think this might work best for some kind of open ravioli or lasagne, where you can get a good view of the pattern on the pastasheets.
Has anyone ever tried this?

Russ and I tried that, only it was sage. To be honest... I can't remember much detail about making it other than it turned out well! It was so long ago that we were on our pasta making kick. We cut it into wide ribbons.
I'll probably be trying so hard for whatever we make to turn out well in this cook-off, that it won't be as good.

[Smithy]

I've seen that pressed-leaf trick before, possibly in the same magazine. I think it's also used in From Simple to Spectacular. I ooh and ah over it, but haven't tried it. Yours looks great!

I'd think you could cut the finished stuff strategically enough that you'd have a centered leaf over something like a raviolo (if I have the right term), or else leave the pieces whole and use them in a lasagna. I still have to try the stuffed pasta, so I'm nowhere near your expertise. It sure looks pretty!

I am very encouraged by the comments that the pasta-making process gets easier with practice. Tonight I'll start getting that practice, I hope.

[slkinsey]

WRT pressed-herb pasta: The best thing to do, IMO, is to keep it whole as lasagne and serve it with a little butter and cheese. That way tou get the full visual and flavor impact of the herb. Lasagne aren't only for baked dishes.

Depending on the herb, I'd recommend blanching/shocking it before incorporating it into the pasta this way. Otherwise something like sage is likely to be unpleasantly hard and/or fuzzy compared to the tender pasta.

[Chris Amirault]

I am very encouraged by the comments that the pasta-making process gets easier with practice.  Tonight I'll start getting that practice, I hope.

I hate to say this because I really try to keep costs down, but there's another way that it got easier for me: that KitchenAid pasta attachment. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to use that Atlas hand-cranked machine with only two hands. Indeed, I needed four in my house: one to stabilize the machine (the clamp didn't work with any of the surfaces in my kitchen), one to crank, one to feed the dough, and one to remove the pressed dough or cut pasta. Now I only need two hands -- and that machine can roll far more quickly than I ever could with that crank.

[Pasta traditionalists committed to fork-blended eggs slowly incorporating a mound of flour atop the clean counter should turn away now.]

I also find that the KA works very nicely for the initial dough blending and kneading. Plunk down your two cups of flour with a pinch or two of salt and blend for a bit. It'll make a slight well in the center, into which you break the three eggs. Then turn the paddle on low to beat the eggs and then incorporate flour into them. As they start to bind and create little nodules of dough, turn the speed up; when it's starts to ball, switch to the dough hook and knead it for a few minutes. I always take it out for some hand kneading before letting it rest, but it works like a charm.

I have found that I make this more often, and thus practice more, thanks to the KA attachment; screwing up and starting over isn't as big a pain in the butt as with the hand-crank machines.

[Sartain]

My dough was really sticking to everything! it would get stuck to other pieces ofdough and there was no way to pull them apart. After getting a little more liberal with the flour it still was sticking...

Kris:

I am normally not one to argue with Mario , but I think if your dough was sticking to everything a bit more flour was necessary. Also, when you are rolling it out, a judicious use of dusting flour wouldn't hurt either. I sometimes dust my hands with the flour (a la gymnists before they mount the instrument) and then just lightly sweep the rolled dough, fold, and roll again.

I would also go with a harder (higher protein) flour next time. I usually go with anywhere between 33% - 50% semolina to all purpose flour. At culinary school, Chef taught us the stiffness test: after you have kneaded the dough, flatten it (or a portion thereof) out into a flat disc. Place this disc horizontally on the side of your outstretched index finger. If the sides of the disc droop, then you need to knead it some more. If it is stiff enough to retain its shape, then wrap it up and let it rest, it's good to go.

Last night I made some agnolotti stuffed with a roasted garlic, roasted eggplant and ricotta mixture that has a dab of vanilla, and served them with a sage butter sauce. They were pretty tasty, but I might take the pasta dough all the way out to the last setting next time (I stopped at the next-to-the-last setting).

editted for spelling...

Edited by Sartain, 08 September 2005 - 08:32 AM.

[little ms foodie]

I saw the herb leaves in pasta on iron chef recently. I think they used them for ravioli- beautiful!

[Mottmott]

I am very encouraged by the comments that the pasta-making process gets easier with practice.  Tonight I'll start getting that practice, I hope.

I hate to say this because I really try to keep costs down, but there's another way that it got easier for me: that KitchenAid pasta attachment. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to use that Atlas hand-cranked machine with only two hands. Indeed, I needed four in my house: one to stabilize the machine (the clamp didn't work with any of the surfaces in my kitchen), one to crank, one to feed the dough, and one to remove the pressed dough or cut pasta. Now I only need two hands -- and that machine can roll far more quickly than I ever could with that crank.

[Pasta traditionalists committed to fork-blended eggs slowly incorporating a mound of flour atop the clean counter should turn away now.]

I also find that the KA works very nicely for the initial dough blending and kneading. Plunk down your two cups of flour with a pinch or two of salt and blend for a bit. It'll make a slight well in the center, into which you break the three eggs. Then turn the paddle on low to beat the eggs and then incorporate flour into them. As they start to bind and create little nodules of dough, turn the speed up; when it's starts to ball, switch to the dough hook and knead it for a few minutes. I always take it out for some hand kneading before letting it rest, but it works like a charm.

I have found that I make this more often, and thus practice more, thanks to the KA attachment; screwing up and starting over isn't as big a pain in the butt as with the hand-crank machines.

On my death bed, they will wrench my KitchenAid and Cuisinart processor from my right and left hands as I try to take them to the great beyond. How did people cook and bake before them? I'm not a gadgety sort of person with these exceptions. The pasta rollers are terrific. I can't imagine pasta making with the fiddly dance of the hand cranked machine. I tried it once. You might want to try using the processor to make your dough. I find it even quicker and easier than the KA - and it cuts down on the flour storm when I'm careless with the switch.

I made some lovely delicate ravioli using the royal all purpose (dump in a heaping cup of flour, a drop or two of olive oil, and 2 eggs, then pulse - works like a charm). This produces a slightly moist dough, so I have no qualms in liberally dusting while I run it through the rollers. I think Kristen's dough problems may have resulted from a too moist dough. My only problem is that I like ravioli with very thin dough, but then it sometimes tears while cooking. I plan to try the 00 flour I've just bought to see how that compares.

This week I made a simple filling of freshly made Italian deli ricotta and some duxelles, When I make ravioli, particularly in summertime, I prefer a simple dressing. This time I used some lemon infused Nunez oil (it's organic) and sprinkled it with chives from my garden and a dusting of pepper and Maldon salt. I also like brown butter and sage with home made pasta, but I'm cutting back on sat fat.

The fun of ravioli is the endless variations possible.

[edsel]

Because I had a lot of pasta left over, I decided to try something I once saw in a magazine: press leaves of basil between two pastasheets.

I think the leaves I used were much too big, also you have to be very careful not to roll them out too quickly or they will tear (as you can see mine did).  I think this might work best for some kind of open ravioli or lasagne, where you can get a good view of the pattern on the pastasheets.
Has anyone ever tried this?

When I dusted off (literally) my pasta machine on Sunday, I was planning on doing exactly this! I wonder if we read the same magazine article. I was thinking that I got the pressed-herb idea from a cookbook by Jean-Louis Palladin, but I just looked through the whole book and didn't see it.

I've seen that pressed-leaf trick before, possibly in the same magazine.  I think it's also used in From Simple to Spectacular.  I ooh and ah over it, but haven't tried it.  Yours looks great!

I'd think you could cut the finished stuff strategically enough that you'd have a centered leaf over something like a raviolo (if I have the right term), or else leave the pieces whole and use them in a lasagna.  I still have to try the stuffed pasta, so I'm nowhere near your expertise.  It sure looks pretty!

That's exactly what I did back when I saw the technique in that magazine (Bon Appetit? Saveur?) One time I made "open" (unsealed) ravioli with a lobster mousse from the Palladin book. Another time I did a sort of "soup dumpling" (xiaolong bao?) with tiny cilantro leaves pressed into the pasta. I shaped them like pillows rather than the usual twisted-up shapes so that the leaf would show through.
One trick to getting the herb to show up nicely is to pass the pasta through the machine twice after you imbed the leaf. You need to use a tiny leaf - the smallest sage or cilantro leaves work, as do tiny sprigs of chervil.
Roll the pasta down to the thinnest machine setting. Lay a sheet out, position the leaves spaced at regular intervals, lay another sheet over the top, and press the sheets together. Run through the rollers again. Cut the the sections apart and run through the rollers with the pasta turned 90 degrees from the original direction. As the pasta goes through the rollers the leaf gets stretched and spread apart, so what starts out as a tiny leaf becomes noticeably larger after it goes through the machine. Rotating 90 degrees spreads the leaves in both dimensions.

[Smithy]

I am very encouraged by the comments that the pasta-making process gets easier with practice.  Tonight I'll start getting that practice, I hope.

I hate to say this because I really try to keep costs down, but there's another way that it got easier for me: that KitchenAid pasta attachment. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to use that Atlas hand-cranked machine with only two hands. Indeed, I needed four in my house: one to stabilize the machine (the clamp didn't work with any of the surfaces in my kitchen), one to crank, one to feed the dough, and one to remove the pressed dough or cut pasta. Now I only need two hands -- and that machine can roll far more quickly than I ever could with that crank.

[Pasta traditionalists committed to fork-blended eggs slowly incorporating a mound of flour atop the clean counter should turn away now.]

I also find that the KA works very nicely for the initial dough blending and kneading. Plunk down your two cups of flour with a pinch or two of salt and blend for a bit. It'll make a slight well in the center, into which you break the three eggs. Then turn the paddle on low to beat the eggs and then incorporate flour into them. As they start to bind and create little nodules of dough, turn the speed up; when it's starts to ball, switch to the dough hook and knead it for a few minutes. I always take it out for some hand kneading before letting it rest, but it works like a charm.

I have found that I make this more often, and thus practice more, thanks to the KA attachment; screwing up and starting over isn't as big a pain in the butt as with the hand-crank machines.

On my death bed, they will wrench my KitchenAid and Cuisinart processor from my right and left hands as I try to take them to the great beyond. How did people cook and bake before them? I'm not a gadgety sort of person with these exceptions. The pasta rollers are terrific. I can't imagine pasta making with the fiddly dance of the hand cranked machine. I tried it once. You might want to try using the processor to make your dough. I find it even quicker and easier than the KA - and it cuts down on the flour storm when I'm careless with the switch.

I don't have the KA pasta attachment, but I do have an electric motor that turns my Atlas machine. It was well worth the $50 I paid for it, for all the reasons you cite above. How DO people do that with only 2 hands?


The machine fits on the side where the crank normally goes. It has 2 speeds. I got some more practice last night (see below) but so far I still can't see using the higher speed.

Edited to add: Chris, note the cutting board used atop my counter. That's how I managed to get the clamp to work. It really requires a thick surface, doesn't it?

Edited by Smithy, 08 September 2005 - 01:16 PM.

[Smithy]

That's exactly what I did back when I saw the technique in that magazine (Bon Appetit? Saveur?) One time I made "open" (unsealed) ravioli with a lobster mousse from the Palladin book. Another time I did a sort of "soup dumpling" (xiaolong bao?) with tiny cilantro leaves pressed into the pasta. I shaped them like pillows rather than the usual twisted-up shapes so that the leaf would show through.
One trick to getting the herb to show up nicely is to pass the pasta through the machine twice after you imbed the leaf. You need to use a tiny leaf - the smallest sage or cilantro leaves work, as do tiny sprigs of chervil.
Roll the pasta down to the thinnest machine setting. Lay a sheet out, position the leaves spaced at regular intervals, lay another sheet over the top, and press the sheets together. Run through the rollers again. Cut the the sections apart and run through the rollers with the pasta turned 90 degrees from the original direction.  As the pasta goes through the rollers the leaf gets stretched and spread apart, so what starts out as a tiny leaf becomes noticeably larger after it goes through the machine. Rotating 90 degrees spreads the leaves in both dimensions.

I'm puzzled by "unsealed" ravioli. Didn't it dump all the contents out into the pot as the ravioli cooked? Am I misunderstanding you?

I like that trick. I can see why you'd need tiny leaves, though. With big leaves I'd expect either the leaf or the pasta to tear with that treatment.

[Smithy]

Hey Kristin -

C'mon in, the water's fine!

Last night I got that extra practice I'd hoped for. I carefully read MobyP's instructions and followed them nearly to the letter, with much better success than my previous attempts using pasta instructions from other sources (including the Atlas pasta maker instructions). One difference was that I used unbleached pastry flour (King Arthur, protein content unknown but doubtless low) and forgot the semolina except as a dusting flour. It all worked well - I will use this recipe again - and I learned as I went.

I used my bread bowl so the egg yolks wouldn't go all over the floor, and basically pretended I was a food processor: that is, instead of all that neat stirring and whisking, then adding salt, etc. I just broke up the eggs well and started stirring. When it started coming together I began to knead it by hand in the bowl, then turned it out onto the bread board with semolina to keep it from sticking. After some 8 - 10 minutes it was smooth, elastic, and felt well mixed. I let the dough rest in the refrigerator, wrapped, per instructions.

While the pasta was resting, I skinned and deboned some frozen smoked cisco I had left over from a recent smoked fish tasting adventure. Cisco is a small freshwater fish, rather bony, pretty fishy. I decided it's generally like anchovy in terms of strong fishy salty flavor, although not as oily, and that it needed anchovy-compatible flavors. Into the food processor went sundried tomato pesto, walnuts, a touch of olive oil, and parmesan cheese. After a bit of whirring I adjusted all with a touch of lemon and salt. Capers might have worked too, but I forgot to try them.

Lesson 1 (I've made this mistake before): with the full recipe of dough, cut it into 8 pieces instead of 4. Otherwise, that strip gets much too long to be manageable by the time it's down to the thin roller setting.

Note how sheer but sturdy the pasta is. Note how elegantly the excess drapes over the pasta machine. You can see the nicely rolled pasta laid out, fading into the background, but I had to cut off a bunch of the excess (not enough hands) and reroll it. In the future, I'll cut the dough into 8ths in the first place and figure on using two.

Lesson 2: I should have stopped with Atlas Level 7 instead of going on to 8. By the time I was putting my layers together, the thin dough was tearing. You can just see a small tear on the right.


I compensated by doubling the pasta on most of the ravioli. Purists may cringe, but it worked for me.


I cut them out with biscuit cutters...


...and poached them in a mixture of chicken stock and water (I needed more, in a bigger pot)...

...and then came to my next question: how, how long, and where does one drain these delicate beauties? A colander didn't seem quite right, but that's what I did. Answers, anyone?

Dinner: ravioli stuffed with smoked fish, tomato and walnuts, tossed with butter and the cooked-down poaching liquid. Garlic, herbs and/or olive oil would have looked better, perhaps tasted better, but it was getting late. This was still good.


I shall now start kicking myself, per MobyP's instructions, for not doing this sooner.

Hey, I have the leftover dough in the refrigerator. Can I freeze this stuff?

Comments and questions welcome. This was fun, and I'll be doing it again soon.

Edited by Smithy, 08 September 2005 - 01:40 PM.

[edsel]

I'm puzzled by "unsealed" ravioli.  Didn't it dump all the contents out into the pot as the ravioli cooked?  Am I misunderstanding you?

I like that trick.  I can see why you'd need tiny leaves, though.  With big leaves I'd expect either the leaf or the pasta to tear with that treatment.

It's been so long I can't remember if I steamed the mousse sandwiched between the pasta squares. Maybe I cooked the pasta separately. The soup dumplings were sealed, of course.

With sage leaves, the leaf actually does tear a bit as the pasta is stretched going through the rollers. It developes a sort of lacy look. I don't remember the chervil or cilantro doing that. If you start out with a big leaf you'll wind up with really big sheets of pasta since everything stretches wider going through the rollers. That would probably be fine for lasagna.

[Susan in FL]

Nancy, thank you ever so much for the details and pictures, especially the "lessons." That really helped me a lot. Maybe this weekend...

[Charlie O]

I was inspired by this thread to make gnocchi for the first time last night. Having a bit of time on my hands, I tried cooking the potato in two different ways.

For the first way I boiled and then peeled them (though I might have left them in a little too long because I was distracted by the cricket).

The second way I tried was to bake the and scoop out the insides. This was more work but seemed to give a lighter mixture (though this could just be imagined - I didn't control any of the other variables such as amount of flour etc).

For each batch I riced the cooked potato, letting the steam escape by laying it out on a wide board, and then mixing in a small amount of flour and an egg to give a mixture I could roll out. I then rolled them on the back of a fork.

While I regularly make pasta, I was surprised how easy this was... and so nice too