First time pasta maker

[schneich]

Ravioli is a good one to start with --- it's amazingly better than anything you can buy. A few caveats: (1) Be sure to flour your surface well otherwise you'll be scraping your beaut works of art off and it'll cramp/crimp their style. (2) I use a little water to seal the edges (3) Cook 'em fast, they will be done in no time at all, so don't overcook them.

Also, no one seems to have mentioned this, but where are you going to put the pasta once it comes out of the machine? You might want to consider (1) getting a drying rack or (2) finding somewhere to store them where they won't stick. (the traditional grad student method is a broomstick with wax paper).

Have fun, you'll be amazed.

DONT cook em at all... just simmer at 90 celsius...

t.

[schneich]

But clearly you should ignore this post, as schneich says - I obviously don't know my ass from a hole in the ground.

HAHAHAHAHA

t.

dude, stay with your coffee.....

[phlawless]

my two cents:

like someone mentioned earlier, semolina based and ap based pastas are two different animals. semolina based seem to work better if allowing to dry, and has a better texture for certain condiments. ap flour pasta I feel should be frozen immediately after rolling and cutting and then cooked max 2 minutes, even for ravioli.

one thing that I'm a stickler for is kneading the dough by hand, which will always produce a superior dough than using a mixer. C'mon, it's ten minutes out of your day: it's the only way to really see the transformation of the dough from gloppy sticky mass to smooth supple dough. Which means it's the only way you'll really learn to make it well.

If you want to be a purist, don't salt your dough, but salt the water so it "tastes like the ocean".

[Adam Balic]

Strong flour

(also known as tipo 00) has a high gluten content, that makes it ideal for yeast products, breads, puff pastry and pasta

Italian law defines '00' flour as having a minimum of 7% protein. That is relatively low and would not generally be classified as a strong flour. As law defines a minimum value, these flours can vary from maker to maker, in general the protein concentration remains low. This information is readily availible. Also flour doesn't have gluten, it contains two proteins that combine to form gluten when kneaded etc.

Semolina is commonly used to make pasta. But in the north of Italy soft wheat flour is often used, often for stuffed pasta. The individual that originally asked for advise specifically mentioned that they could not readily get fine semolina flour. So the point of this thread would be give them other options, which most people have.

Edited February 28, 2004 by Adam Balic (log)

[schneich]

Strong flour

(also known as tipo 00) has a high gluten content, that makes it ideal for yeast products, breads, puff pastry and pasta

Italian law defines '00' flour as having a minimum of 7% protein. That is relatively low and would not generally be classified as a strong flour. As law defines a minimum value, these flours can vary from maker to maker, in general the protein concentration remains low. This information is readily availible. Also flour doesn't have gluten, it contains two proteins that combine to form gluten when kneaded etc.

Semolina is commonly used to make pasta. But in the north of Italy soft wheat flour is often used, often for stuffed pasta. The individual that originally asked for advise specifically mentioned that they could not readily get fine semolina flour. So the point of this thread would be give them other options, which most people have.

ts ts ts ts.....

all the 00 flours that i know of have a gluten content of min 12 %

also you find this percentage pretty much everywhere you look.

AP flour has a gluten content usually 4 % lower than this ( as i wrote b4)

the Gliadin and Glutenin content is very commonly refered to as "gluten content",

so this adds nothing new to the discussion.

cheers

t.

Edited February 28, 2004 by schneich (log)

[Jonathan Day]

To move things forward, let's stipulate that all those Italian, American and British food writers (Bugialli, Hazan, Gray, Waters, etc.) are wrong. Adam Balic's scholarly course on the eGCI is wrong. Giancarlo Caldesi, the Italian chef with whom I learned to make pasta, was wrong when he said that it could be done with ordinary flour. Everyone who has prepared pasta using all purpose flour didn't actually enjoy the product they produced.

So let's get it straight, people: Schneich is right. He says so himself, after all. Everyone else is wrong. They don't know how to prepare or cook pasta. They don't know their flours. Source: Schneich.

Granted. Now let's move on.

[Adam Balic]

Strong flour

(also known as tipo 00) has a high gluten content, that makes it ideal for yeast products, breads, puff pastry and pasta

Italian law defines '00' flour as having a minimum of 7% protein. That is relatively low and would not generally be classified as a strong flour. As law defines a minimum value, these flours can vary from maker to maker, in general the protein concentration remains low. This information is readily availible. Also flour doesn't have gluten, it contains two proteins that combine to form gluten when kneaded etc.

Semolina is commonly used to make pasta. But in the north of Italy soft wheat flour is often used, often for stuffed pasta. The individual that originally asked for advise specifically mentioned that they could not readily get fine semolina flour. So the point of this thread would be give them other options, which most people have.

ts ts ts ts.....

all the 00 flours that i know of have a gluten content of min 12 %

also you find this percentage pretty much everywhere you look.

AP flour has a gluten content usually 4 % lower than this ( as i wrote b4)

the Gliadin and Glutenin content is very commonly refered to as "gluten content",

so this adds nothing new to the discussion.

cheers

t.

Since you have such a personal interest in flour and peoples lack of knowledge about them I suggest that you read the following link:

Flour

You will find the table of minimum gluten contents of flour quite refreshing and may prompt you to contact your '00' flour supplier.

But before this I suggest that you refresh you memory on the definition of a 'minimum content'.

Once you do that I can recommend reading the book:

"Pasta: The story of a universal food" by Silvano Serventi and Francoise Sabban.

It also contains some useful information of pasta and the types of flour used.

edit: sorry Johnathan, I didn't see you post. Not nother word I promise.

Edited February 28, 2004 by Adam Balic (log)

[schneich]

To move things forward, let's stipulate that all those Italian, American and British food writers (Bugialli, Hazan, Gray, Waters, etc.) are wrong. Adam Balic's scholarly course on the eGCI is wrong. Giancarlo Caldesi, the Italian chef with whom I learned to make pasta, was wrong when he said that it could be done with ordinary flour. Everyone who has prepared pasta using all purpose flour didn't actually enjoy the product they produced.

So let's get it straight, people: Schneich is right. He says so himself, after all. Everyone else is wrong. They don't know how to prepare or cook pasta. They don't know their flours. Source: Schneich.

Granted. Now let's move on.

when do you guys start to understand what i say ????

i didnt say that all the great chefs are wrong, all i say is:

first, italian flour is not "US AP flour" and cant be compared to it.

second, i doubt that one of these chefs ever worked with AP themselves!

comeon your such a clever guy...

you seem to have the intention to get me wrong...

[Jonathan Day]

Let's move on, please.

[phlawless]

if you check harold mcgee...

00 flour 7-10%

all purpose 9-11%

bread 10.5-12%

high gluten 12-14%

whole wheat 11.5-14%

cake 8.5-10%

pastry 6.5-9%

[itch22]

Everyone should take this pro-pasta energy and put it into battling the hoard of Atkins Diet fanatics.

[lamington]

Maybe it's time schneich got down off the offensively high horse and accepted that other people know things too. Adam Balic is, of course, right about the '00' flour, and it doesn't take much looking at the websites for Italian flour producers to realise that '00' varies considerably in protein/gluten content. So schneich, go to the source, and learn.

[Mayhaw Man]

I was just thinking dried pasta from the market was sounding better and better.

[ellencho]

Woo hoo! Just finished cleaning up from my marathon ravioli making session. There must have been a pasta god shining down on me late last night because my SO came home with a bag of semolina flour.

I ended up making two pasta recipes - one with semolina and one without semolina, just so I could see what all the fuss from earlier was about. I used the Alfred Portale recipe for my semolina pasta and I used the Cook's Illustrated Egg PAsta recipe for the AP flour pasta. Both turned out perfectly and both had perfect texture. The only difference I noticed was visual, the semolina pasta was yellower than the Egg pasta.

I took everyone's advice, let the dough rest, had drying racks set up, used extra flour to keep the dough from getting too sticky and to prevent clogging up the kitchenaid pasta roller attachments. While the dough was resting I made three different ravioli fillings, all ricotta/egg/parmesean based - a beef, shiitake mushroom, and just plain cheese. They were all equally delicious. And like everyone else said, better than store-bought. When they were all finally cooked, I just tossed them in browned garlic/olive oil/parm cheese.

Oh, and that kitchenaid roller attachments are AWESOME. I managed to save dough from both recipes and made fettucine and I served that with a vodka sauce. I mixed both semolina and AP flour noodles in that dish and nobody noticed (including myself).

So thanks again to everyone for their great suggestions. Considering how easy pasta-making is, I'll definitely be making more, and buying less in the future.

[Craig Camp]

"Pasta" is not a monolithic thing with only one recipe. First of all in Italy "pasta" also refers to dough, cake or a piece of pastry and of course the topic that is being debated here.

A trip up and down Italy will quickly convince you that what we english speakers generally refer to as "pasta" covers a broad range of products. These range from tajarin (which is more eggs than flour) to the hard semolina pasta of the south - two very different products yet both "pasta". The type of flour used depended on the wheat grown in each region. I had an excellent pasta made from rice flour in Veneto - where they grow a lot of rice.

It is also worth noting that "pasta" is hardly an exlusive Italian dish and is served the world over. To insist on one correct diffinitive recipe is rediculous - even within Italy. The recipe for tajarin and orecchiette is hardly the same (nor are the sauces best with them), but they are indeed both pasta dishes.

There is also the clear division between sauces which are better for fresh pasta and those that show there best with the firm textures of dried pasta. Then there is the entirely unique catagory of stuffed pasta which also changes in character from region to region and country to country.

[schneich]

Maybe it's time schneich got down off the offensively high horse and accepted that other people know things too. Adam Balic is, of course, right about the '00' flour, and it doesn't take much looking at the websites for Italian flour producers to realise that '00' varies considerably in protein/gluten content. So schneich, go to the source, and learn.

dear lameington i doubt that iam ready to learn from people who google up some websites in 5 mins. and think they can

tell me in which direction the world rotates... sorry no ;-)

as i said, i was talking out of my every day experience with italian flour

(i doubt you use italian flour very much in the US ;-)

and my experience is that even with using just the german 405 flour

which is a little stronger in gluten than the US AP flour it is

hard to do a real good pasta.

i never doubted the pasta knowhow of certain people here,

what i doubt is the basic knowledge of the product flour.

i dont know which sources you guys on the other side of the atlantic

have other than some weird websites concerning italian flour.

besides other things i do i was responsible for a product report

on last years anuga food fair (which is known to be the larget food fair

in the world) on italian products. that report gave me the chance to find

out about the products of italy´s most important food companys, especially

products as pasta secca & pasta fresca, olive oil and chocolate.

in most product descriptions of "tipo 00" flour the protein content was between

12-15 %. this combined with knowledge of 3 of the bigger AP manufacturers in

the US which declared the protein content in their biggest selling products

between 7-10 % leads me to the logical conclusion that AP flour

sucks for making pasta due to a lack of protein aka gluten :-)

dear lameington i doubt that iam ready to learn from people who google up some websites in 5 mins. and think they can tell me in which direction the world rotates... sorry no ;-)

now dont tell me there is NO ONE out there who ever tried to make pasta

out of AP flour and didnt find it a gluey, slippery, slimey etc. especially when

(and that was a point in the discussion above) using no egg. up to my knowledge this is simply not possible with a quality level that would satisfy me.

(maybe other peoples quality approach is different here ;-)

alltogether i just wanted to share my 10 y. knowledge in pasta making

with people in this thread.

cheers

t.

[Mayhaw Man]

Just for fun I made a little fettucine last night with AP flour (Not just any AP flour, but Martha White's Finest). Used my KA pasta rig and cranked it right out ably assisted by my 10 year old son. It worked out great. Good quality and tasted fine (especially considering it was cooked in shrimp stock and sauced with shrimp and oysters sauteed in butteer and fresh creme (as opposed to creme freche-this was made Friday and sold on Saturday at the Covington, LA Farmer's Market ). Damn good.

I have a couple of pounds of semolina (not sure what brand, I buy it at Central Grocery in New Orleans and repackage for the freezer) but I decided to do what I knew was wrong and possibly crazy - I used the AP flour and lived to tell about it.

I like to live on the edge.

[schneich]

"Pasta" is not a monolithic thing with only one recipe. First of all in Italy "pasta" also refers to dough, cake or a piece of pastry and of course the topic that is being debated here.

A trip up and down Italy will quickly convince you that what we english speakers generally refer to as "pasta" covers a broad range of products. These range from tajarin (which is more eggs than flour) to the hard semolina pasta of the south - two very different products yet both "pasta". The type of flour used depended on the wheat grown in each region. I had an excellent pasta made from rice flour in Veneto - where they grow a lot of rice.

It is also worth noting that "pasta" is hardly an exlusive Italian dish and is served the world over. To insist on one correct diffinitive recipe is rediculous - even within Italy. The recipe for tajarin and orecchiette is hardly the same (nor are the sauces best with them), but they are indeed both pasta dishes.

There is also the clear division between sauces which are better for fresh pasta and those that show there best with the firm textures of dried pasta. Then there is the entirely unique catagory of stuffed pasta which also changes in character from region to region and country to country.

when you talk about tajarin i guess you mean the

"tajarin ricci" as tajarin is just the Piemontese version of

tagliatelle and are not necessarily made with that much egg.

btw. the original tajarin recipe uses durum flour...

cheers

t.

[melkor]

now dont tell me there is NO ONE out there who ever tried to make pasta

out of AP flour and didnt find it a gluey, slippery, slimey etc. especially when

(and that was a point in the discussion above) using no egg. up to my knowledge this is simply not possible with a quality level that would satisfy me.

(maybe other peoples quality approach is different here ;-)

As I said earlier, AP flour based pastas are very easy to overcook - when they are overcooked they turn to paste. As long as you don't overcook it, AP is perfectly acceptable for pasta making.

[schneich]

now dont tell me there is NO ONE out there who ever tried to make pasta

out of AP flour and didnt find it a gluey, slippery, slimey etc.  especially when

(and that was a point in the discussion above) using no egg. up to my knowledge this is simply not possible with a quality level that  would satisfy me.

(maybe other peoples quality approach is different here ;-)

As I said earlier, AP flour based pastas are very easy to overcook - when they are overcooked they turn to paste. As long as you don't overcook it, AP is perfectly acceptable for pasta making.

as i said before, its a crime to cook fresh pasta at all

its suposed to simmer at around 90 celsius...

i really really think more and more people should read the books

of herve this and harold mcgee to make a tiny step

to free the art of cooking of weird and wrong myths & legends....

cheers

t.

[melkor]

As I said earlier, AP flour based pastas are very easy to overcook - when they are overcooked they turn to paste.  As long as you don't overcook it, AP is perfectly acceptable for pasta making.

as i said before, its a crime to cook fresh pasta at all

its suposed to simmer at around 90 celsius...

What on earth are you talking about? Since when is it not cooking to leave something in simmering water? Whatever you want to call the process by which the pasta goes from raw to ready-to-eat, if you do it for too long it will turn to paste.

[schneich]

As I said earlier, AP flour based pastas are very easy to overcook - when they are overcooked they turn to paste.  As long as you don't overcook it, AP is perfectly acceptable for pasta making.

as i said before, its a crime to cook fresh pasta at all

its suposed to simmer at around 90 celsius...

What on earth are you talking about? Since when is it not cooking to leave something in simmering water? Whatever you want to call the process by which the pasta goes from raw to ready-to-eat, if you do it for too long it will turn to paste.

are you a nit picker ??

t.

[Mayhaw Man]

to make a tiny step

to free the art of cooking of weird and wrong myths & legends....

I believe that this is a large part of what this sight is all about, although most of us manage to do it without insulting each other or stooping to general insults concerning a very wide range of generally well informed and knowledgable posters.

Cooking refers to the process of preparing food with heat (for a non specific length of time and in many different ways), I would argue that simmering is pretty much the same thing (except that it generally involves liquid at lower temps than say, boiling).

Symantic arguments of the type that seems to have developed here are tedious and waste bandwidth and everyone's time. This thread started out with an interesting question from a poster who was looking for an answer to a pretty specific and legitimate question and seems to have digressed into a comical argument in unending circular form.

[edsel]

This thread started out with an interesting question from a poster who was looking for an answer to a pretty specific and legitimate question and seems to have digressed into a comical argument in unending circular form.

Brooks,

Don't be bummed by the noisy nature of this thread! A question was asked and valuable input was received:

Woo hoo!

And to Herr schneich:

Don't take it personally when people call you on your various pontifications. We all have opinions.

[Mayhaw Man]

[brooks,

Don't be bummed by the noisy nature of this thread! A question was asked and valuable input was received:

Woo hoo!

You just made my day. Thanks