Home-made pasta

[Adam Balic]

Short answer from me is that 00 is the grade specified by many recipes, I tried it and found the texture of the dough to be noticably smoother and the resultant pasta lighter textured than using plain flour. I know there are many types and grade of flours but I just use plain, self raising, strong (for bread) and the 00. I have been using corm meal for pancakes just recently and have used bluecorn meal as well, but thats about it as far as my expertise goes.

"00" is the most refined grade of soft wheat flour in Italy. It has a minumum of 7% protein, which is mostly glutenin and gliadin, which form gluten (eg. protein content of these flours is a rough guide to the amount of potential gluten in the dough). As different brands of "00" flour can have different protein contents, some brands are better then others for making pasta. Less refined Italian soft wheat flours contain more protein ("2" has a minumum of 10% protein), and the texture of the flour isn't as fine. Semolina (durum wheat) flours have ~15% protein. This means that "00" flour produces a finer textured pasta, but it has to be worked longer to develop the gluten content or have egg added to act as a protein substitute.

[viaChgo]

I recently purchased a bag of "00" flour from an Italian market & am looking forward to making pasta with it. I don't know much about the differences of flour types, but is "00" flour the same as Cake flour? Is there an "American grocery store" equivalent to "00"?

So I'm also assuming that you can't really substitute "00" flour in recipes that use AP flour, right?

[Adam Balic]

I have only ever been to the USA twice and I only briefly looked at the flours ( ), but USA cake flour has a low protein content like "00" flour, however it could have other properties that I am un-aware of. Here is a link that mentions a whole bunch of information about various flours.

Flour

[Katherine]

I recently purchased a bag of "00" flour from an Italian market & am looking forward to making pasta with it. I don't know much about the differences of flour types, but is "00" flour the same as Cake flour? Is there an "American grocery store" equivalent to "00"?

So I'm also assuming that you can't really substitute "00" flour in recipes that use AP flour, right?

Cake flour makes crumbly dough and tasteless pasta. Don't use it.

[MobyP]

I've used both the Imperia machine (which you can find in Sur la Table etc.) and also the Atlas (by Marcato) - both are the most common in terms of availability (in the UK and US), but I found the Atlas far sturdier, and also it had more gradations on the wheel, making it more accurate in judging pasta thickness. I'm still not completely happy with the thicknesses available - though the next step up is a restaurant pasta machine - about 500 dollars/250-300 pounds. It makes a much wider sheet, and again is sturdier.

Cleaning these machines is also an issue. My instructions told me not to use soapy water, or throw it in the dishwasher, so I always end up knocking the thing around on my front doorstep, trying to get all of the flour out, or using a toothbruh to get in the crannies.

Of course, when I grow up, I wanna be an Italian grandmother... I wanna snap my fingers and have gnocchi flying in all directions.

Of favourite recipes - the Batali beef-cheek ravioli with chicken liver toscana sauce (and shaved black truffle, if you have it, or some black truffle oil if you don't) is as close to heaven as I've come. Obviously beef cheeks are hard to come by, but I've used oxtail, and short ribs, and felt both times that my result turned out a far more succulent end result than the version I had at Babbo.

I've been playing with several different pumpkin/butternut squash recipes, and there always seemed to be something missing - a heft, or substance to the taste (not the texture). I discovered recently that a tablespoon or so of good balsamic vinagar adds a background to the flavour that's unidentifiable, but makes all the difference.

[edit for typo]

Edited January 14, 2004 by MobyP (log)

[mdt]

I recently purchased a bag of "00" flour from an Italian market & am looking forward to making pasta with it. I don't know much about the differences of flour types, but is "00" flour the same as Cake flour? Is there an "American grocery store" equivalent to "00"?

So I'm also assuming that you can't really substitute "00" flour in recipes that use AP flour, right?

Cake flour makes crumbly dough and tasteless pasta. Don't use it.

You can get Italian-style flour from King Arthur. I have not yet tried it, but will be soon as I am curious to see how it works. I currently use regular AP flour as that is what my 92 year old Italian Grandmother has used since she came to the US and she can turn out some amazing pasta!

[MobyP]

In America, I found that most 'Pasta' flours were made predominantly with hard durham wheat, rather than the soft Typo '00' wheat used in North Italy, and so in a large portion of wheat + eggs recipes. I see the Arthur flour is soft wheat, but it's worth keeping an eye on when you come across them in markets.

[Mottmott]

I've been playing with several different pumpkin/butternut squash recipes, and there always seemed to be something missing - a heft, or substance to the taste (not the texture). I discovered recently that a tablespoon or so of good balsamic vinagar adds a background to the flavour that's unidentifiable, but makes all the difference.

Have you tried adding some amaretti to your pumpkin ravioli?? If so, how does it compare with the addition of balsamic?

[stevea]

I have an Imperia and never clean it with water. I just shake the dust out when I'm finished. Then, the next time I use it, I put a small piece of dough through the rollers a few time to collect anything old that might be left around, discard it, and get on with rolling out the noodles.

[MobyP]

I've been playing with several different pumpkin/butternut squash recipes, and there always seemed to be something missing - a heft, or substance to the taste (not the texture). I discovered recently that a tablespoon or so of good balsamic vinagar adds a background to the flavour that's unidentifiable, but makes all the difference.

Have you tried adding some amaretti to your pumpkin ravioli?? If so, how does it compare with the addition of balsamic?

I have indeed. And interestingly, it tends to end up in the 'too sweet' catagory (although they're better than without the amaretti). I like Batali's idea (from the Babbo book) of grating the amaretti at the end - that way you'll also get something textural - like using pangratato. And many 'traditional-traditional' recipes that I came across use motarda di cremona - a sort of mustard/ preserved pickled fruit - which is hard to come by in the States.

I say interestingly, above, because in my mind the balsamic should also throw it into too sweet territory, but somehow in this case it's a double sweet positive making a more savory negative.

Strange, huh. Did I mention I once served them with shaved white truffle?

Yeah, that didn't hurt.

[Adam Balic]

Well in truth, these pasta are ment to be 'sweet':

"The town of Crema in Lombardy is famous for its tortellini stuffed with an extraordinary mixture of dried and candied fruit, amaretti biscuits, dark chocolate, Marsala, and cheese. Throughout the rest of Lombardy, a more home-style pasta stuffed with pumpkin and amaretti is common. Emilia-Romagna has a sweet pastry pie, stuffed with a mixture of macaroni or tortellini dressed with porcini mushrooms, sweetbreads, and chicken livers and bound in béchamel sauce flavoured with cinnamon and cloves. Recipes that are similar to this pie can be traced back to the Renaissance."

However, there is some variation in the level of sweetness between different amaretti, so if you were interested you could experient.

[MobyP]

Apologies Adam.

It's not that the balsamic stops it being sweet - as it is indeed supposed to be - but rather adds something to the background of the taste - the substance or heft mentioned in my original post - which for my taste buds makes the dish more successful. Pumpkin and butternut squash tend towards the very sweet anyway; so it always seems necessary to moderate that. For me, ricotta in fillings tends to dilute the flavours, without adding much of interest. This just takes it in a slightly different direction.

[Adam Balic]

Oh yes I agree. Actually, this is one recipe that doens't really work well in the UK. The pumpkins availble aren't very flavourful (ie. mostly Butternut squash) and the ricotta isn't great either (no real acid), infact most of it is UHT, which is unsuitable for the dish. One thing that can be done is to roast the punkin to concentate the flavour or use a combination of pumpkin and sweet potato (orange fleshed type).

[MobyP]

Oh yes I agree. Actually, this is one recipe that doens't really work well in the UK. The pumpkins availble aren't very flavourful (ie. mostly Butternut squash) and the ricotta isn't great either (no real acid), infact  most of it is UHT, which is unsuitable for the dish. One thing that can be done is to roast the punkin to concentate the flavour or use a combination of pumpkin and sweet potato (orange fleshed type).

Exactly. I usually roast the flesh first, and then run it through a tamis. This latter step is a relatively new one - but people really noticed the difference - the smoothness of the puree. I haven't tried a sweet potato, though.

[Adam Balic]

Putting pumpkin through a tamis must be an utter bastard. The sweet potato thing is something I have seen in Italy, also the same blend is used to make Gnocci.

Edited January 16, 2004 by Adam Balic (log)

[MobyP]

Yes, "complete and utter" just about describes it.

But look at all the happy faces on the children!

[Adam Balic]

Yes happy, but laughing at you not with you.

[Priscilla]

For this sort of filled pasta I use kabocha squash, a beautiful smallish mottled-green-skinned Japanese pumpkin with dense deep orange non-fibrous flavorful flesh. Roasted, put though the fine screen of the old Mouli, although one could certainly carry on with a tamis if one likes that sort of thing. I mean, I sometimes make mayonnaise with a wooden spoon, don't I?

Butternut squash, in my experience, is among the wateriest and most fibrous of the hard squashes. It is however very easy to find, not as difficult as others to peel (again, if you like that sort of thing), and has a relatively small seed cavity.

So if it's watery, ubiquitous, pale-flavored squash one is after by all means go for butternut.

Adam's dark-fleshed sweet potato also was commended by Marcella Hazan in one of her first two books from the 1970s I don't remember which one but she found it an acceptable U.S. substitute for the dense pumpkins she knew in Italy.

Making pasta just this past Saturday afternoon, the Consort and the 12-year-old, who were sort of getting a lesson in this task, were amazed by the historic bits of Pasta Past that shook out of the old Atlas.

I do something like Stevea said, put through a small piece of dough repeatedly, which does a good job of collecting any Unmentionables. I do brush out as much as possible with each use, of course, but there's a lot a lot a lot of hidden Italian crevices in there, and all has been well, lo, these many years I've been using my Atlas.

[MobyP]

So if it's watery, ubiquitous, pale-flavored squash one is after by all means go for butternut.

Finally, someone who understands me.

Caw, and there I was, feeling good about myself.

[Priscilla]

Course what I MEANT was encouragment, encouragement to strive to resist the butternut that at every turn the Universe is insisting upon one. Butternut inflates expectation only to inevitably dash it on the rocks. In this way it resembles Disney product.

[MobyP]

I am wiv you, sister. We will go to the barricades, and nary a butternut will get past us before they agree our demands!

Erm...what are our demands?

[Priscilla]

Or we could declare butternut to be an Enemy of the State, and try for re-education and perhaps someday even rehabilitation.

With a great deal of looking-through-fingers, butternut could become a Hero of the Squashes.

And then somebody could write a florid propangandistic tract about how it was Wolfgang Puck, all along, him and his Socialist Realist puree of butternut squash soup he's been plying all over the place for years which got us into this fix in the FIRST place.

[MobyP]

Pinko Puck and his Commie Purée?

They'll never fall for it!

[Adam Balic]

So if it's watery, ubiquitous, pale-flavored squash one is after by all means go for butternut.

Finally, someone who understands me.

Caw, and there I was, feeling good about myself.

I agree on this frount as well. Unless you grow them yourself. My Grandfather once grew something called a "Trombone", which is suposse to be an ancestor of the Butternut (I have not evidence for this) and they were somewhat better. And more fun to look at.

[Jonathan Day]

I suspect one reason butternut squashes are so popular is that they keep practically forever -- something I'm sure endears them to supermarket buyers. Like those tomatoes that are perpetually rock-hard and flavourless, levels of stock loss must be sharply reduced.

I've tried steaming and roasting butternut, but as Moby says the flavour is always a bit thin. Last time I made pumpkin ravioli, the pumpkin didn't turn up because of a family shopping SNAFU, but there were two butternut squash in the house. I finely chopped some sweet onions, sweated them for a long time and let them caramelise a bit. Roasted the squash, pureed squash and onions together, then spread the puree on a sheet pan and let it dry out in a very low oven for an hour or so, then put the whole through a sieve.

It wasn't bad, but next time I will buy a slice of real pumpkin!