The Fresh Pasta Topic

[nickrey]

How much water do you use relative to the amount of pasta? Too little and it's likely to stick. Make sure the water is at a rolling boil before putting pasta in. Don't bother about the nonsense of putting olive oil in the water while cooking. It simply floats on the top. Straight after draining, however, you could toss some through. Agree with other comments about adding it to the sauce quickly. Also, you could hang the fresh pasta to let it dry a bit before cooking.

[Merkinz]

Thanks for the comments, my doughs definitely aren't too wet, they seem almost impossible to work at the beginning - barely sticking to itself - then I rest it anywhere between 1 and 24 hours before rolling then cooking. I tend to steer clear of letting it dry out before cooking but have tried this once or twice to no avail.

Reading your comments I think I may not be taking it to the sauce quick enough. I tend to cook, remove pasta to colander and before I dress it I usually faf about for a minute or two while I heat the sauce up or some such thing... Tomorrow I'll focus on basically taking it from the cooking water straight to the sauce!

I'll also add more water to my pot I boil the pasta in. Currently I'm using around 3 liters for 400 - 500g pasta.

Thanks for the help.

[Merkinz]

Had great results tonight! Cooked 400g of fresh pasta in 5.5L of water for 60 seconds then scooped out the pasta with a slotted spoon straight into a pan with a little oil and some sautéed pancetta. Poured in 60ml of the pasta water and 135ml of egg yolks (cooked sous vide at 62°C) and tossed ... came out amazing. Best home made pasta I've ever made.

Thanks for the help

[nickrey]

Well done!

[IndyRob]

How much water do you use relative to the amount of pasta? Too little and it's likely to stick. Make sure the water is at a rolling boil before putting pasta in. Don't bother about the nonsense of putting olive oil in the water while cooking. It simply floats on the top.

I think you are absolutely correct in that the amount of water is the answer, and no oil is needed.

However, I think the explanation that adding oil doesn't do anything because it floats to the top may be flawed. There are painting techniques that rely on floating a thin oil paint layer on of top water and dipping objects into it to achieve a sort of swirl paint covering (or in some cases, even intricate patterns).

That's not to say that it's a good idea for pasta, just that the reason may not be accurate. I think a better reason to avoid oil is to allow the sauce to stick.

[nickrey]

This point would be valid if you were dipping the pasta in though the oil layer as you dip the objects through the layer in the process you describe. If you watch pasta cooking in vigorously boiling water, it rolls around below the water. The oil is floating on top of the water. I still can't see physically how the oil would get onto or into the pasta.

[IndyRob]

Many, if not most, instructions of cooking pasta do not specify a vigorous boil, but rather, just above a simmer. But ultimately, this is just a matter of degree. The oil layer, whether disrupted or not, will be at the top. And when the pasta passes through it on its way to the bottom of the pot, the oil will prefer to stick to the pasta rather than the water it hates so much.

If we were in agreement that this was an effect we'd like to promote, we could probably find ways to make this even more effective. But I think we'd both agree that this is not a goal for either of us for this application.

But this is a distinction that becomes useful when we do want to break the rules.

[sweetstoyou]

Hi Merkinz,

I will tell you what I do. I make a dry dough of the flour, and then make flat chapatis, and then add a little flour to dry it. Then I cut it off in desired shapes. The water needs to have a teaspoon of oil before you boil the pasta strands and the pasta never sticks.

Hope this would help,

Mahek

[furzzy]

Two things:

Taking the pasta directly from the water to the sauce is the way to go, as several have said.

Putting oil into the cooking water for pasta has nothing to do with the pasta at all. It's only to keep the pot from boiling over (you've heard of "spreading oil onto troubled waters?" That's what it's about.

[Katie Meadow]

I can't speak to home made pasta, since I always use dried, but my rules are as follows: use plenty of water--enough so that when the pasta goes in it doesn't stop boiling. Salt the water as it comes to a boil, and don't add the pasta until it is at a rolling boil. Don't put any oil in the pasta water. My understanding is that oil coats the pasta and prevents the sauce from absorbing as fully as you want. If you are using the pasta right away and putting it into sauce there is no need to drain it for any length of time and it shouldn't stick to itself. I agree that the quicker you get it into the sauce the better. If you need the pasta to sit in a colander for a few minutes before serving and saucing, you can put a tiny bit of olive oil on the pasta and mix it around by hand if your pasta is sticking. Since I don't use home-made pasta I don't know it it tends to stick more than dried.

I didn't learn any of this from my mother. She used to put a lot of oil into the boiling pasta and she also used to run cold water on it in a colander, even if she was using it right away. That seems really counter-intuitive, but I never was able to talk her out of either habit.

[nickrey]

...

Putting oil into the cooking water for pasta has nothing to do with the pasta at all. It's only to keep the pot from boiling over (you've heard of "spreading oil onto troubled waters?" That's what it's about.

This raises alarms with me in the same way as "sealing a steak keeps the juices in." Is there any evidence for this "conventional wisdom" or is it an urban cooking myth? A quick search of the Internet suggests that doing so lowers the surface tension but this could simply be the same fictional justification repeating itself.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

...

Putting oil into the cooking water for pasta has nothing to do with the pasta at all. It's only to keep the pot from boiling over (you've heard of "spreading oil onto troubled waters?" That's what it's about.

This raises alarms with me in the same way as "sealing a steak keeps the juices in." Is there any evidence for this "conventional wisdom" or is it an urban cooking myth? A quick search of the Internet suggests that doing so lowers the surface tension but this could simply be the same fictional justification repeating itself.

My understanding was that oil prevented pasta water foaming. One would not want to prevent boiling I would think. Anyhow, here is a wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer

My own solution is to skip the oil and use a deep pot for pasta. However my homemade egg pasta tends to foam a lot and I sometimes think of using oil. If foam is a problem, oil is easy enough to test. I did use oil years ago when I started cooking pasta but with boxed dried pasta there is not much reason for it unles you fill the pot to the brim.

[Bjs229]

If holding pasta a thin coat of oil worked gently thru it helps keeping it from sticking together. IMHO fresh pasta should be cooked , added to the sauce and served immediately.

[furzzy]

To the "naysayers" concerning oil on troubled waters:

I should have explained further, I guess. Never occured to me it wouldn't be universally understood. My bad.

I'm a sailor, of sorts. USCG 400 Ton Master with Ocean Routes Endorsement, certified by Lloyds London to skipper sailing vessels worldwide. I did a lot of deliveries - and my husband & I cruised & lived aboard our 35' sailboat for 13 years. (Maybe we should have a topic about cooking in Small spaces <G>)

When the weather whips up seriously, and even heaving to isn't quite enough, pouring a little oil onto the water Does calm the seas to a great extent. When it's too bad to go upwind at all, and one must "run before the storm" (meaning head downwind), towing a line with a canvas bag filled with oil can make the difference between surviving or being "pitchpoled" (meaning flipped end over end - deadly), or even being

"pooped" - (waves coming over the vessel from behind). It DOES work.

The has been described all the way back to Pliny - & Benjamin Franklin did some experiments with it. I was able to find some information aboout that "research" online. http://www.benfranklin300.org/_etc_pdf/Dutch_Joost_Mertens.pdf

This short quote comes from an article actually addressing the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but goes into the subject of oil on water. There's a short video about halfway down the page that's interesting to watch. Find this at:

http://deepseanews.com/2010/06/pouring-oil-on-troubled-waters/

I used oil with very satisfactory results during the late severe hurricane of the 25th of August, in latitude 31 N., longitude 790 W. The wind having carried away the mainsail, I bent a storm trysail, and continued under that sail until it also blew away. During the time, the vessel was shipping large quantities of water, the sea being very irregular, nearly every one breaking. After the sails were blown away, finding it necessary to do something to save the ship and crew, I took a small canvas bag and turned about five gallons of linseed oil into it, and hung it over the star- board quarter. The wash of the sea caused a little of the oil to leak out, and smoothed the surface, so that for ten hours no water broke aboard. I consider that the oil used, during the last and heaviest part of the hurricane, saved vessel and crew.

Hope this helps, if anyone is actually interested, to understand why putting a bit of oil on the roiling pasta water keeps it from boiling over (usually).

[nickrey]

I made some pasta at lunchtime and decided to try this out. First I got the water up to a rolling boil. Then I added the pasta and let it come back to the boil. There was active rolling and foaming. At this stage I added the oil (around 1 tbsp). I was quite convinced that it would settle down, partially because of what was said above but also because the oil was at room temperature. To my surprise, the rapidity of the boil and the foaming did not change. Whether or the the sea settles down, it seems that boiling water doesn't.

I do have to recant one of my earlier statements, however, the pasta did manage to circulate through the oil and was coated with oil. This was unpleasant and the sauce didn't stick as well as it should have.

I'd encourage others to experiment to see if their water settles down. If it does, we can look at how my process differed. If it doesn't, I think we can lay this one to rest.

[Lisa Shock]

Alton Brown covers this in his 2006 Myth Smashers episode. Scroll down a ways to find the relevant section. For those too impatient to read it, it takes a lot of oil in relation to the amount of starchy water to prevent foaming and rolling. Foaming can also be prevented by simply using more water. Lots of oil results in oily pasta which doesn't allow sauce to stick to it and has an odd mouthfeel.

[Shalmanese]

I've been on a fresh pasta kick lately and I've been frustrated by how hard it is to find reliable information on how various factors affect the outcome. I can find tons of recipes out there but they're all dogmatic about their approach and generally appealing to tradition or prior art instead of really delving into the issue. It's easy to make a perfectly acceptable mound of pasta but it's been frustrating trying to approach greatness.

It's not so much about finding "the best" recipe or "the right" recipe so much as understanding how different factors affect the final outcome.

Commonalities between all recipes seem to be:

• Bring together eggs, other liquid ingredients & flour and allow them to incorporate into a homogenous mass (either via hand using a well, via a stand mixer paddle or via a food processor)
• Optionally, rest the dough at this stage to allow flour to hydrate (3 - 5 minutes seems common)
• Knead for some amount of time (anywhere from 3 - 20 minutes, either by hand or with a dough hook)
• Tightly wrap and allow dough to rest to let gluten relax (15 minutes - 1 hour recommended as lower limit, upper limit is usually a day)
• Split into pieces and run each piece through the widest setting of a machine
• Optionally, fold in half or in thirds and run through several more times, either with the same orientation or perpendicular (anywhere from 3 times to 10+ times)
• Decrease the width by either 1 or 2 notches and run though again. Repeat until desired thickness
• Optionally, let dry slightly before cutting (until dough is "leathery", 5 - 20 minutes)
• Cut using the cutter attachment or knife
• Cook anywhere from 60 seconds to 3 minutes

Based on this master recipe, what I'd like more insight into is:

• Gluten content: High or low? I've heard everything from cake flour to bread flour recommended. Recommending Tipo 00 doesn't help since 00 just means finely milled.
• Finely milled vs normal: Does using Tipo 00 have a measurable difference vs American milled flours?
• Wheat vs Semolina: I've seen recipes with anywhere from 0% to 100% semolina flour. How does the ratio of semolina change the texture?
• Hydration levels: What's the ideal ratio of dry to wet for the dough? I've played around with doughs on both ends of the spectrum and there's quite a lot of differences in the final texture.
• Liquid composition: I've seen whole eggs, egg yolks, water, EVOO and milk all recommended as wet ingredients. How does more fat (egg yolks, oil) vs more water (water, milk) affect texture. Why milk? What does it do to the flavor?
• Kneading level & technique: Is there a difference between incorporating via hand vs stand mixer vs food processor? Is there a difference between kneading by hand vs mixer? Can you over knead the dough? What's a good stopping point for kneading?
• Machine folding: Many recipes advise you to repeatedly put the dough through the machine at the widest setting. Some say 3 times, 5 times, 10 times etc. Does putting it through more times help the dough? hurt the dough? Is there a point of diminishing returns?
• Salt: Some doughs contain salt and others do not. How does salting the dough vs salting the cooking water affect seasoning?

I've been making a small batches of pasta pretty much every day to try and nail down some of these variables. So far, the biggest lesson seems to be that no amount of pushing pasta through the rollers can make up for lack of kneading. Pasta kneaded just with rollers tends to come out short and with a crisp bite instead of a pleasing chew. Also, I used to be pretty dogmatic about keeping the dough fairly dry since it's easy to work with but I've been moving more and more wetter doughs as they seem to help with gluten development.

Most pasta recipes on the web are from people who make a single batch of pasta every month or so. I'd love to hear from people who make large quantities of pasta every day and are more intimately involved with these issues.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I'm more with those who make small batches once or twice a month. But I find over-kneading worse than under-kneading. I prefer semolina when I have it, however I like King Arthur AP organic just fine. Your mileage may vary.

[Franci]

Shalmanese, too bad all my books on pasta making in Italian are traveling at the moment, maybe I'd have more answers. The classic 1 egg every 100g of flour it's for the typical "sfoglia" emiliana. And also in Emilia, some people use flour 00 and others flour 0. The difference being in the ash content. According to Italian law the ashes in 00 flour are .55 max (protein min 9%) and .65 in 0 flour (protein min 11%)

I've been on a fresh pasta kick lately and I've been frustrated by how hard it is to find reliable information on how various factors affect the outcome. I can find tons of recipes out there but they're all dogmatic about their approach and generally appealing to tradition or prior art instead of really delving into the issue. It's easy to make a perfectly acceptable mound of pasta but it's been frustrating trying to approach greatness.

It's not so much about finding "the best" recipe or "the right" recipe so much as understanding how different factors affect the final outcome.

Commonalities between all recipes seem to be:

• Bring together eggs, other liquid ingredients & flour and allow them to incorporate into a homogenous mass (either via hand using a well, via a stand mixer paddle or via a food processor)
• Optionally, rest the dough at this stage to allow flour to hydrate (3 - 5 minutes seems common)
• Knead for some amount of time (anywhere from 3 - 20 minutes, either by hand or with a dough hook)
• Tightly wrap and allow dough to rest to let gluten relax (15 minutes - 1 hour recommended as lower limit, upper limit is usually a day)
• Split into pieces and run each piece through the widest setting of a machine
• Optionally, fold in half or in thirds and run through several more times, either with the same orientation or perpendicular (anywhere from 3 times to 10+ times)
• Decrease the width by either 1 or 2 notches and run though again. Repeat until desired thickness
• Optionally, let dry slightly before cutting (until dough is "leathery", 5 - 20 minutes)
• Cut using the cutter attachment or knife
• Cook anywhere from 60 seconds to 3 minutes

On your first point, I think is it very important that the eggs are well beaten so you are not going to have specks of color and the white and yolk are well mixed. Then it's important, when the dough is coming together, to make sure there are no dry bits of dough on your hands and on the boards that are going to stay dry in the dough and make holes in the sheets later on.

Some people nowadays like to make the classic sfoglia emiliana, cutting a bit of flour 00 with durum (80% and 20%), it gives more bite for sure and holds the cooking better. Italians mainly use durum flour (finer, like the one you can buy from King Arthur) for pasta; semolina, coarser, for gnocchi alla romana. If you make a Southern italian style dough it's generally durum flour and water, that has being boiled and cooled down to lukewarm, (boiling water in case of cavatelli, at least in my area). Usually this kind of dough is with no eggs. Then you'll find regional variations: flour 00 and water to make casoncelli around Bergamo; flour 00 and egg whites to make stringozzi around Spoleto, in some part of Sardinia semolina flour, egg whites, saffron for gnocchi sardi; flour 00 and yolks for tajerini in Piedmont; flour 00 eggs and water in Liguria and a lot more...I think the general opinion is that working the dough by hand is better than using the pasta machine. If you want achieve the loved rough texture let the sheets dry a bit before going to through the last roll at the desired thickness. Then before cutting let dry until leathery. No drying necessary for southern style pasta like orecchiette.

• Gluten content: High or low? I've heard everything from cake flour to bread flour recommended. Recommending Tipo 00 doesn't help since 00 just means finely milled.
• Finely milled vs normal: Does using Tipo 00 have a measurable difference vs American milled flours?
• Wheat vs Semolina: I've seen recipes with anywhere from 0% to 100% semolina flour. How does the ratio of semolina change the texture?
• Hydration levels: What's the ideal ratio of dry to wet for the dough? I've played around with doughs on both ends of the spectrum and there's quite a lot of differences in the final texture.
• Liquid composition: I've seen whole eggs, egg yolks, water, EVOO and milk all recommended as wet ingredients. How does more fat (egg yolks, oil) vs more water (water, milk) affect texture. Why milk? What does it do to the flavor?
• Kneading level & technique: Is there a difference between incorporating via hand vs stand mixer vs food processor? Is there a difference between kneading by hand vs mixer? Can you over knead the dough? What's a good stopping point for kneading?
• Machine folding: Many recipes advise you to repeatedly put the dough through the machine at the widest setting. Some say 3 times, 5 times, 10 times etc. Does putting it through more times help the dough? hurt the dough? Is there a point of diminishing returns?
• Salt: Some doughs contain salt and others do not. How does salting the dough vs salting the cooking water affect seasoning?

I've been making a small batches of pasta pretty much every day to try and nail down some of these variables. So far, the biggest lesson seems to be that no amount of pushing pasta through the rollers can make up for lack of kneading. Pasta kneaded just with rollers tends to come out short and with a crisp bite instead of a pleasing chew. Also, I used to be pretty dogmatic about keeping the dough fairly dry since it's easy to work with but I've been moving more and more wetter doughs as they seem to help with gluten development.

Most pasta recipes on the web are from people who make a single batch of pasta every month or so. I'd love to hear from people who make large quantities of pasta every day and are more intimately involved with these issues.

I just moved back to the US after 8 years, I'm going to play a little bit myself with local flours and report back. I generally do 00 flour and eggs for sfoglia emiliana (I weight the eggs out of shell and double the amount of flour in weight). Or do the Southern Style with durum and warm water.

I think generally people go for a wetter dough for stuffed pasta, drier for tagliatelle. You can decide yourself if you want to cut with some durum and the amount you like. How long to work the dough? I like this video:

Stop at 4 minutes 15 seconds and she'll show how the dough should look like.

You can watch also very much loved Simili sisters with subtitles for some tips:

I find that if for some reasons my dough it's too wet, I prefer to let if dry rather than adding flour to it. I don't add salt that leaves white dots on the dough. When I use the pasta machine to roll out the dough I prefer to pass it through the roll at each setting only once, only at the beginning I fold in thirds to have a more regular shape and let it rest 10 minutes before passing through the last thickness I want...I feel if you work it too much the dough gets too smooth. If I feel lazy I use a mixer just pulsing the flour with the beaten eggs and when I get "crumbles" I finish up on the board. And this is another very important matter, the board you use. In Emilia they like seasoned poplar wood. But I'm from Apulia and I use the board for orecchiette.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Franci (log)

[Okanagancook]

I have a ton of parsley that I want to use up. The new Le Pigeon cookbook has a recipe for Parisian Gnocchi which is made with butter, bone marrow, parsley, eggs, water and flour. Once I cook the gnocchi will they freeze well? I should think so because it's basically pasta dough and has no potato.

[JetLaggedChef]

When it comes to pasta, I call it the "ham logic". The story goes, a lady called her mom to get her ham recipe that everyone loved. One of the steps was cutting off the back of the ham. "Why do you do that?" asked the lady. Her mom said, "I don't know, I always did it that way because that's how your grandmother did it." So she called her grandmother who said, "I cut the back of the ham off because it didn't fit in my oven." And thaaat's how pasta habits are passed down.

I'm surprised at the number of English speaking professional chefs who don't understand pasta. Here's answers to the specific questions:

• Gluten content: High or low? High gluten, generally. It's important to hold it together. But if using an egg dough, you can get away with avg gluten. 2 cups semolina to 1 cup King Arthur a/p flour to 1 cup of water is a perfect ratio. I don't like egg pasta because it's far too sticky and frustrating to work with. Plus, it has to be rolled extremely thin or it's rubbery.
• Finely milled vs normal: It's a personal preference. The ratio above produces a perfect pasta that's identical to all the pasta I've eaten on trips Italy
• Wheat vs Semolina: See ratio above. (Unless you're asking about whole-wheat - which I don't think has any place in pasta!)
• Hydration levels: See ratio above
• Liquid composition: Answered above. Never put oil in your pasta dough, it coats the flour molecules and keeps it from absorbing the liquid causing huge variations in outcome. If you feel like the dough needs oil, there's a problem with the ratio.
• Kneading level & technique: Is there a difference between incorporating via hand vs stand mixer vs food processor? Is there a difference between kneading by hand vs mixer? Can you over knead the dough? The difference between methods is just the amount of effort and time. Even when using the dough hook, you should still knead for a few minutes. You cannot over-knead pasta. If your pasta is "tough", it's because it's cut too thick (this is a very common problem when using egg pastas which is why I don't like them.)
• Machine folding: Many recipes advise you to repeatedly put the dough through the machine at the widest setting. Some say 3 times, 5 times, 10 times etc. Does putting it through more times help the dough? hurt the dough? Is there a point of diminishing returns? It doesn't hurt the dough, but it's only necessary with egg pasta dough because it has to be rolled extremely thin due to swelling 3 times its size. To get it that thin, you have to do it in stages so that it doesn't tear. If using eggless dough (macaroni), you don't have to roll it as thin so you can just put it through at the desired setting. I always run mine through three times at the desired setting (folding like an envelope each time), but this is just as a precaution to make sure the dough is perfectly consistent. It really isn't necessary, sometimes I skip it and run it through just once when I'm in a hurry.
• Salt: Some doughs contain salt and others do not. How does salting the dough vs salting the cooking water affect seasoning? Never put salt in the dough. You can't taste it and if you use iodized salt it causes the dough to turn gray in a few hours. Omit the salt and you can store the eggless dough for several days in the fridge before letting come to room temp and using. Also, needing to boil 2 gallons of water is a huge myth. This is explained and demonstrated in the link below.

There are only two types of pasta dough: noodle (with eggs) and macaroni (no eggs). Different parts of Italy are actually known for different shapes of pasta, not different dough. Authentic pasta uses the correct type of dough that makes sense for the shape. Since noodle dough contains egg proteins it can handle floating in liquid for long periods of time and is used for soups and similar dishes. It swells to about 3 times its size during cooking which makes it an extremely poor choice for tube pastas. Since macaroni dough does not contain eggs, it doesn't swell much during cooking and is used for tube pastas. (Google the history for macaroni and cheese in the US. It's kind of interesting. It was the first pasta to become popular in the US and we called it "macaroni" not understanding that the Italians were calling it by the dough, not the shape. Universally now though, everyone knows what you mean when you say macaroni.)

As for oil in water during cooking, I've never heard anything but "ham logic" reasons for doing it. But as other readers have pointed out, there is definitely a reason not to do it - your sauce won't stick to the pasta. I did a pretty detailed blog post and video with all of this, plus debunking the myths about how to properly cook pasta:

http://christophercooks.blogspot.com/2013/12/authentic-homemade-pasta.html

Edited December 31, 2013 by JetLaggedChef (log)

[catdaddy]

To the "naysayers" concerning oil on troubled waters:

I should have explained further, I guess. Never occured to me it wouldn't be universally understood. My bad.

I'm a sailor, of sorts. USCG 400 Ton Master with Ocean Routes Endorsement, certified by Lloyds London to skipper sailing vessels worldwide. I did a lot of deliveries - and my husband & I cruised & lived aboard our 35' sailboat for 13 years. (Maybe we should have a topic about cooking in Small spaces <G>)

When the weather whips up seriously, and even heaving to isn't quite enough, pouring a little oil onto the water Does calm the seas to a great extent. When it's too bad to go upwind at all, and one must "run before the storm" (meaning head downwind), towing a line with a canvas bag filled with oil can make the difference between surviving or being "pitchpoled" (meaning flipped end over end - deadly), or even being

"pooped" - (waves coming over the vessel from behind). It DOES work.

The has been described all the way back to Pliny - & Benjamin Franklin did some experiments with it. I was able to find some information aboout that "research" online. http://www.benfranklin300.org/_etc_pdf/Dutch_Joost_Mertens.pdf

This short quote comes from an article actually addressing the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but goes into the subject of oil on water. There's a short video about halfway down the page that's interesting to watch. Find this at:

http://deepseanews.com/2010/06/pouring-oil-on-troubled-waters/

I used oil with very satisfactory results during the late severe hurricane of the 25th of August, in latitude 31 N., longitude 790 W. The wind having carried away the mainsail, I bent a storm trysail, and continued under that sail until it also blew away. During the time, the vessel was shipping large quantities of water, the sea being very irregular, nearly every one breaking. After the sails were blown away, finding it necessary to do something to save the ship and crew, I took a small canvas bag and turned about five gallons of linseed oil into it, and hung it over the star- board quarter. The wash of the sea caused a little of the oil to leak out, and smoothed the surface, so that for ten hours no water broke aboard. I consider that the oil used, during the last and heaviest part of the hurricane, saved vessel and crew.

Hope this helps, if anyone is actually interested, to understand why putting a bit of oil on the roiling pasta water keeps it from boiling over (usually).

Think I read about this in some Farley Mowat books.

[kellytree]

I have a ton of parsley that I want to use up. The new Le Pigeon cookbook has a recipe for Parisian Gnocchi which is made with butter, bone marrow, parsley, eggs, water and flour. Once I cook the gnocchi will they freeze well? I should think so because it's basically pasta dough and has no potato.

To freeze gnocchi: cook them in boiling water for about a minute - drain - pour some oil on them - mix - lay the gnocchi on a cookie sheet (better if they don't touch but if they do it's no big deal) - put the cookie sheet with the gnocchi in the freezer - once frozen put the gnocchi in bags.

Works perfect

[weinoo]

I'm surprised at the number of English speaking professional chefs who don't understand pasta. Here's answers to the specific questions:

• Gluten content: High or low? High gluten, generally. It's important to hold it together. But if using an egg dough, you can get away with avg gluten. 2 cups semolina to 1 cup King Arthur a/p flour to 1 cup of water is a perfect ratio. I don't like egg pasta because it's far too sticky and frustrating to work with. Plus, it has to be rolled extremely thin or it's rubbery.

I'm surprised that you don't give weights. Surely you know how much 1 cup varies depending on who is doing the scooping.

[Twyst]

Ive been trying my hand at home made ravioli quite a bit lately, and while the results have always been delicious, my ravioli are always very wrinkly and shriveled looking when I take them out of the water.  What is causing this?

Edited March 2, 2014 by Twyst (log)