[Modernist Cuisine] Pasta (3•381)

[Anonymous Modernist 327]

Several of us over at the eG Forumshave tried making the standard wheat pasta listed on volume 3 and have found the dough to be much too firm to use with rollers. Was this dough specifically designed for an extruder? If so, how would you modify it to work with a roller? I think most of us have simply added more water to get to a workable texture, but of course you could add more egg or oil as well.

[Anonymous Modernist 10]

We just recommend adding more water until the dough is workable for this style of pasta. Adding more oil would be fine but then the dough would only be suited for making fresh pasta.

[Anonymous Modernist 328]

I posted this question over at the eG forums, but thought I could post it here as well.

With normal OO pasta flour, the MC recipe calls for 57.6% egg yolks. I weighed the egg yolks I had and they averaged 20g each, but for 1kg flour that's 576g egg yolks, or 29 eggs!

Is it possible to use lecithin powder instead? How would you calculate the amount of lecithin powder needed to emulate an egg yolk?

It's possible that it will work out cheaper to simply use the 29 eggs, but I have no idea what I would do with 29 egg whites and adding lecithin powder to pasta seems far less decadent than so many eggs.

[Anonymous Modernist 310]

Here in Montreal you can buy 1 liter of egg yolks for about $5 at a restaurant supply place. YOu can probably find the same thing with all these peoples eating egg whites! 

[Anonymous Modernist 327]

The egg in pasta is not being used as an emulsifier, so I don't think you can just replace it with lecithin. Nor would you want to, in my opinion: the taste of the egg yolk is fundamental to the flavor of the pasta.

Also: as LFMichaud points out, if you have access to a commercial supplier you can buy egg yolks in bulk; otherwise, search over at eGullet for "uses for egg whites" I think we've got a several topics that cover it. Good thing eggs are cheap!

[Anonymous Modernist 10]

ChrisZ, Chris Hennes is right that you wouldn't want to use lecithin powder. You need the fat and their water content (for a lubricant) of the egg yolks.

You can try using your leftover egg whites for meringue, macaroons, or fruit soufflés.