Home-made pasta

[hathor]

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".

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Would you mind posting that chart? I think it would be a valuable aid in this conversation.

Maybe after the holidays we can do a sort of controlled experiment. We all use the same recipe, and made pastas from the different flours at the same time and compare. Anyone game?

[hathor]

Without knowing protein/gluten etc. Basic rule of thumb: Tipo 0 or 00 refers to 'soft wheat' or grano tenero. You need to use eggs to bind the pasta.

Grano duro or hard wheat only needs water.

Pontormo, does that sort of answer your question above? Where you were asking about red hard wheat and the soft wheat of E-R?

The south of Italy grows the hard wheat because it is hardier (heh, I made a pun) and because they have less courtyard animals, i.e. chickens. Central Italy and N.Italy have lots of chickens and tender wheat. The more chickens, the more eggs show up in the recipes.