Home-made pasta

[JPW]

I actually found a use for the wire glass racks that the previous owners of my house put up underneath some upper cabinets.

They work great for hanging pasta.

[sequim]

Sequim,

Go with picaman's suggestion about using a broom until you get an official rack (if you ever get one).  It'll save using up your counterspace while drying your pasta.

I am sure picaman can give you more details on the "how" but I would imagine the broom could be propped across the tops of two chairs.  Drape the pasta on the broomstick.  You could lay wax paper or clean towels across the broomstick first before draping the pasta for drying.

Oh I thought that was a joke!

You know I have a wooden clothes drying rack, I think that would be perfect. I'd need to take a picture of that!

[Adam Balic]

I tried again last night and the results were much better. It's so gratifying what practise can do. This time I put less water in and kneaded the dough while it was dry and eventually it came together and was less sticky than the night before and quite easy to knead for about 5 minutes. I was afraid to overknead it as I thought that might toughen the dough. Maybe I'm wrong about that?

Glad to that the pasta improved on the second round.

Overkneading. Gluten is formed by kneading the dough, you want gluten, this gives the pasta it's structure. In bread making you can get too much gluten formation and this can result in an inferior product. But pasta isn't bread, gluten is the scaffolding that holds the starch bricks together. With out gluten formation you just have starch and water, which is wall paper paste.

This is why there is all this talk about flour, different flour contains different levels of gluten. Semolina flour is very high in gluten, soft wheat flour is lower, depending on the flour it can be very low, that is why egg is added, to replace the the function of the gluten.

Try kneading the dough for 10 minutes and see if this improves the dough. In the in initial putting the dough through the roller, it is best to fold the dough sheet back on it self and re-roll on the same setting (largest gap setting). Do this three times, this will give the dough strength (like making a samuri sword) and allow it to cut better (not like a samuri sword).

Also when selecting flour look for flour that contians very low free sugars (non-starch carbohydrates), these sugars increase stickiness.

Enjoy!

[balex]

...mmm...home made pasta. One of life's most sublime pleasures. Lately my college attending son has become the ravioli master in our house.  We have a kitchen full of family all working on the ravioli, with much wine and laughter. What could be better?

One of our better fillings was roasted garlic potatoes and basil, with a very simple brown butter, sweated onion sauce. Also a sort of shrimp provencal filing: shrimp, tomato, parsley, garlic.

I have a question: there is a pasta in brodo dish in central Italy...the pasta seems to be extruded and has a distinct nutmeg flavor.  Does anyone have a recipe for that? Grazie mille!

This is probably 'Passatelli" which are not really pasta but a sort of breadcrumb based mixture and quite thick.

Marcella Hazan has a recipe for them -- or there are some on the web.

You can find what looks like a good recipe here:

Passatelli Recipe

[picaman]

You could lay wax paper or clean towels across the broomstick first before draping the pasta for drying.

Again with the broom insults! My broom is clean

You know I have a wooden clothes drying rack, I think that would be perfect.  I'd need to take a picture of that!

That would work perfectly, and a picture would be in order

If you go the broom route, just put it between two chairs or two anythings (I use the counter and a shelf opposite.) And, in all seriousness, the wax paper/clean towels is probably a good idea for "multi-use drying racks" and one that I'll adopt going forward.

Jamie

[hathor]

I have a question: there is a pasta in brodo dish in central Italy...the pasta seems to be extruded and has a distinct nutmeg flavor.  Does anyone have a recipe for that? Grazie mille!

This is probably 'Passatelli" which are not really pasta but a sort of breadcrumb based mixture and quite thick.

Marcella Hazan has a recipe for them -- or there are some on the web.

You can find what looks like a good recipe here:

Passatelli Recipe

[slkinsey]

Re: pasta drying racks, etc... I've always tended to simply dust the freshly cut pasta with bench flour and form them into little nidi on a sheet pan to wait for cooking. Never had any problems.

[sequim]

Re: pasta drying racks, etc... I've always tended to simply dust the freshly cut pasta with bench flour and form them into little nidi on a sheet pan to wait for cooking. Never had any problems.

Cmon now, translate! Bench flour? Nidi?

[slkinsey]

"Bench flour" = the flour you use on the board while you are kneading/shaping/cutting the dough.

"Nidi" = the plural of "nido" which = "nest."

[sequim]

Overkneading. Gluten is formed by kneading the dough, you want gluten, this gives the pasta it's structure. In bread making you can get too much gluten formation and this can result in an inferior product. But pasta isn't bread, gluten is the scaffolding that holds the starch bricks together. With out gluten formation you just have starch and water, which is wall paper paste.

This is why there is all this talk about flour, different flour contains different levels of gluten. Semolina flour is very high in gluten, soft wheat flour is lower, depending on the flour it can be very low, that is why egg is added, to replace the the function of the gluten.

Try kneading the dough for 10 minutes and see if this improves the dough. In the in initial putting the dough through the roller, it is best to fold the dough sheet back on it self and re-roll on the same setting (largest gap setting). Do this three times, this will give the dough strength (like making a samuri sword)  and allow it to cut better (not like a samuri sword).

Ah ha. I kept wondering why recipes would say to fold the dough and then run it through. I really have a hard time doing something if I don't know why, so thanks for going into such a lengthy explanation!

When I was thinking of overkneading, I was thinking of admonitions to not overly work pastry and pie doughs. I get confused as to when is kneading good and when too much handling is bad. It's all flour, water and eggs, right?? I'm thinking it probably depends on the texture you're trying to get so with pastry, you want flake and with pasta you want something chewier.

[slkinsey]

When I was thinking of overkneading, I was thinking of admonitions to not overly work pastry and pie doughs. I get confused as to when is kneading good and when too much handling is bad. It's all flour, water and eggs, right?? I'm thinking it probably depends on the texture you're trying to get so with pastry, you want flake and with pasta you want something chewier.

It all depends on whether or not you want to develop the gluten.

With pastry and biscuits, etc. you want the result to be tender and flaky. As a result, these techniques and recipes are designed to minimize devevelopment and cross-linkage of gluten -- a big part of this is making sire the dough is "worked" as little as possible.

With bread and pasta, on the other hand, you want to develop the gluten to its fullest extent. For bread, the network of gluden traps gasses produced by the fermentation of the yeast and inflates the dough. In pasta, the ntwrock of gluten holds the pasta together, and provides structure and "bite" to the cooked pasta. As a result, dough for bread and pasta should be kneaded thoroughly.

[Mottmott]

I just made up a bunch of pasta. Cut some for lunch and have sheets drying to use in a lasagna I plan to make during our threatened snowstorm tonight.

My main problem is getting the sheets to roll out nice and neat. The edges tend to be frazzled a bit. I can't seem to keep the sheets the width of the rollers and no more. They turn out nice and silky, but I often have to trim the sides. Too wet? too dry?

My other problem is my son scoffed up the leftovers from last night's roasted cauliflower that I'd intended for my lunch So I settled for some bottarga, lemon, garlic and oil. I sure like the tender quality of homemade pasta.

[sequim]

...mmm...home made pasta. One of life's most sublime pleasures. Lately my college attending son has become the ravioli master in our house.  We have a kitchen full of family all working on the ravioli, with much wine and laughter. What could be better?

One of our better fillings was roasted garlic potatoes and basil, with a very simple brown butter, sweated onion sauce. Also a sort of shrimp provencal filing: shrimp, tomato, parsley, garlic.

Just an update on a newbie making pasta - let's see, this is about Take Four. I had my sister's birthday party last week at which I made Tom Douglas's Linguine with Clams and Pancetta and Chiles and it turned out great. Took alot of work making pasta for 5 people though, but I made his recipe for 4 and there was plenty, even for leftovers. Plus we had lots of other courses. I used all durum flour and although I can't tell much difference in taste from my previous all-purpose and semolina attempts, it was highly tender. In fact I may have rolled them too thin as once I had them dried on my clothes rack then tried to take them off, some were breaking. I was freaking out thinking they would all break but the majority were okay.

Now, onward and upward. I'd like to start making ravioli as that's really my favorite - the filled pasta.

And that's why I quoted Hathor - oh could you pretty please share any of your ravioli recipes? They sound so good! I'd love to be at your house when you have a ravioli-making session.

[hathor]

[.

And that's why I quoted Hathor - oh could you pretty please share any of your ravioli recipes? They sound so good! I'd love to be at your house when you have a ravioli-making session.

Sure! Come on over! Bring wine!

Basically you can put just about anything into a ravioli, what ever looks good or fresh in the market. I'm thinking about an asparagus filling for Easter...probably something like this: steamed asparagus, little bit of toasted walnuts, fresh ricotta, then puree the filing. Serve with a creamy lemon sauce.

Had some lovely 'tortelloni' recently, which is a giant tortelli, filled with walnuts, ricotta and sausage. With a walnut sauce. Rich, but fantastic.

Check out Marcella Hazan's bookClassic Italian Cooking for some great recipes. Its a great getting started book. Someone from eG recommended it to me.

And the group ravioli sessions: priceless! We've solved many of the worlds problems over a ravioli session!

[sequim]

oh could you pretty please share any of your ravioli recipes?  They sound so good!  I'd love to be at your house when you have a ravioli-making session.

Sure! Come on over! Bring wine!

Basically you can put just about anything into a ravioli, what ever looks good or fresh in the market. I'm thinking about an asparagus filling for Easter...probably something like this: steamed asparagus, little bit of toasted walnuts, fresh ricotta, then puree the filing. Serve with a creamy lemon sauce.

Had some lovely 'tortelloni' recently, which is a giant tortelli, filled with walnuts, ricotta and sausage. With a walnut sauce. Rich, but fantastic.

Check out Marcella Hazan's bookClassic Italian Cooking for some great recipes. Its a great getting started book. Someone from eG recommended it to me.

And the group ravioli sessions: priceless! We've solved many of the worlds problems over a ravioli session!

Thanks Hathor!

Yes, I realized, while taking Moby's stuffed pasta class, that ravioli is about leftovers and creativity. I've made spinach raviolis with homemade mascarpone, pine nuts, and chicken liver the last couple times and I'm ready to branch out. I want to try Moby's asparagus recipe as it's that season for spring veggies.

I ordered the Marcella book along with a couple other cookbooks, oops I did it again. Can't wait to get those and check out her ravioli recipes.

Speaking of semolina. I bought a big bag of what I thought was bulk semolina flour from Central Market; however, when I went to knead my pasta dough (using about 80% of this semolina and 20% regular flour) it was horribly coarse and wouldn't develop the gluten. It kept falling apart, finally, I chucked it and used the reverse proportion and that kneaded just fine. So cautionary note, one better know the quality of the semolina before buying it. Some are too coarse as this was, it was more like cereal. However, when I bought some at DeLaurenti, it was milled just right and I could use the 80% semolina mix.

[hathor]

Thanks for the tip on the semolina. I try to find the 00 type flour if at all possible. And my son is truly the pasta man...I'm on filling!

[JennyUptown]

Try making a butternut squash ravioli. Browned butter on top or a cream/sage sauce is delicious with this. Pumpkin works well also.

I'd love to make something like this...brown butter, sage, some cream. Sounds great and simple, right?

Well, not for this novice so if any of you can be more specific and supply a recipe or other guidance, I'd love it!

[MobyP]

Well, not for this novice so if any of you can be more specific and supply a recipe or other guidance, I'd love it!

Ta-da! (scroll down for butternut squash recipe)

[Megan Blocker]

I made homemade pasta for the first time ever yesterday, and I think it was something of a success! I went to my friend Cristin's apartment to help her break in her pasta maker, which was a Christmas gift last year.

We decided to make two pounds' worth so that we could see how it held up in the freezer. And, sauce-wise, we went with two - one based on a Babbo recipe we had back in February: turnips, carrots, pancetta and chives; and then just plain old pesto.

First we mixed the egg with a bit of olive oil and some semolina and all-purpose flour.

Then we kneaded the dough and let it rest for an hour.

While it was resting, we prepped for the turnip sauce and made the pesto! We covered the pesto with a layer of olive oil and left it on the counter.

Then we started rolling the pasta...this took a long while. It took us a few tries to get the rhythm down...I folded the sheets over and rolled them by hand, Cristin put them through the machine. 10 times on setting 1, then one time each on each setting up to setting 5.

We cut the sheets into linguine and fettucine.

Finally, time to make the sauce!

We rendered the fat from the pancetta until it was quite crispy, which took about 10 minutes. I added some butter, which foamed right away, and then the turnips and carrots. Let those caramelize a bit till they were crispy around the edges, then added some chopped parsley and chives.

Tossed with the fettucine, topped with more chives and parsley, and time to eat!

The pesto and linguine was easy - just tossed them together and served.

A really fun day...my arms and shoulders are a bin worn out, though!

ETA: I forgot to tell you about how the pasta turned out! It came out extremely tender and just al dente enough - especially the fettucine. The flavor was good, but I think I'd add a bit of salt to the dough next time.

One lesson learned is that nesting is good...we hung the linguine, and it dried out a lot. Which is fine, but it just made it hard to put into the pot without breaking it.

Another lesson learned is that resting the dough is extremely important. We let it rest after every bit of handling, and it came out very good and not at all tough - definitely worth every bit of delayed gratification.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Megan Blocker (log)

[Pontormo]

First, Megan, gorgeous! Nice documentation and a belated congratulations.

Here are two related threads on the topic: Juanita's & the Cook-Off.

Now, this is the reason I am posting:

FLOUR TYPES FOR MAKING EGG PASTA

Context: Throughout December, we are contributing to a new cooking thread in the Italian forum where the focus is Emilia-Romagna. This region is famous for Parmigiano-Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, Balsamic vinegar, ragu in Bologna, and in Ferrara, bread. Then, of course, there are lasagne, tortellini, cappelletti, tagliatelli and thick pasticcie: pies stuffed like a Russian doll with more stuffed pasta. All depend on an egg-based dough.

In The Splendid Table, Lynne Rossetto Kasper explains that egg pastas developed out of necessity. While the hard wheats of the South produced pasta that stored well, due to the low protein content of the softer local wheat of Emilia-Romagna, pasta made exclusively with flour and water did not fare well. The addition of egg resulted in a softer, pliant dough that performs exceptionally when stuffed, layered or simply allowed to absorb butter, broth or sauce.

Just how soft the flour of Emilia-Romagna is is something I'll explore later. If you know, please pipe up. However, someone recently asked about the soft Italian tipo 0 and 00 flours and what ought to be used outside of the country, especially in North American cities where it's not available. While I have a neighborhood store that carries Italian flour, the bags are small and probably stay on shelves for long periods of time. Therefore, I thought I'd provide the following information and see if anyone has something further to add:

Protein Content

KA [King Arthur] KA makes a Tipo 00 equivalent with 8.5 % protein.

Its AP flours are made with hard red wheat. 11.7 % protein in AP, unbleached.

The bread flour has 12.7 % protein.

Select Artisan 11.3 %

Mellow pastry 10.3 %

Pastry: soft wheat, 9.2 %

White Lily flour: 8% protein.

I have not looked into other brands simply because both KA & WL stress consistency. I know many home cooks add semolina/durham flour to their egg pastas, but since these are hard wheat flours, I plan to rely exclusively on WL to see how it performs. In the past, I've simply pulled out KA's AP flour when there's nothing Italian at home.

Edited December 4, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Shaya]

Pontormo, funny you should bring this up today. I just finished making a chart for myself of different types of flours, in an attempt to get it all straight.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper says most homemade pastas in Emilia Romagna are made using "grano tenero" flour, which is soft. The protein content is 11-14. Medium starch and gluten levels. The one I have is imported, tip "00" and grano tenero. "00" refers to the finest sifting on the scale that goes from "00" to "0" to "1" and "2".

[Pontormo]

Lynne Rossetto Kasper says most homemade pastas in Emilia Romagna are made using "grano tenero" flour, which is soft.  The protein content is 11-14.  Medium starch and gluten levels. 

←

Ahhhh! Just as this Yankee was justifying the purchase of a highly processed, Southern flour! Hmmm. Now I gotta wonder what distinguishes my KA AP flour made from hard red wheat from the soft wheat of Emilia-Romagna. I haven't read the part of LRK's book yet that provides numbers; now I understand why she advocates AP stone-ground. Still curious since I've worked with Tipo 00 and it is so much finer than KA AP. Latter must have higher gluten level, too.

[Chris Amirault]

Can we establish the categories? Are we talking about a simple hard/soft wheat designation? Fineness of grind? Protein, gluten, and starch?

[Pontormo]

Sure, Chris, there are different factors to consider such as gluten and coarseness of grain.

I was focusing primarily on distinctions between protein content in the hard wheats used for making dried pasta in Southern Italy, and the softer wheats in the North where eggs are incorporated into the dough (sfoligia). I wondered how they compared to the hard wheats found in many stone-milled AP flours vs. the softer wheats used for White Lily and other highly processed Southern brands of flour.

Just dropped by the library, and after Shaya's post, found further justification for sticking with KA AP flour. That's the type and brand Marcella Hazan prefers, saying flours made for making pasta are no good. Off the top of my head, I can't remember what she said to justify her pronouncement, or if she did, but her word's good enough for me. I picked up a new bag and skipped the Tipo 0/00.

[Chufi]

I'm not even going to try to figure out how those american flours and their protein contents relate to the flours I can buy over here....

That said, I have been using an Italian 00 flour for pasta, but recently I was out and used regular flour. I definitely noticed a difference while making it, the dough was a bit tougher, coarser, not as soft and pliable.