drying and preserving pasta.

[Luckylies]

okay. love fresh pasta. also like dried stuff. can I dry my own fresh stuff? how? for how long? where? how to store? ravioli? how long do I dry it before I freeze it? how long does it last in the freezer. I really do love making the pasta, yet not every night. will it taste similar after I dry or freeze it? c'mon you guys google way better than me...

[Jason Perlow]

My guess is you should use a food drier, but I gotta say, if you are going to bother to make fresh pasta, then just put it in freezer bags and keep it around for when you want fresh pasta. Fresh pasta will store in the freezer for a long time.

[EdS]

Marcella Hazan says that attempts to keep fresh pasta soft, such as wrapping in plastic or refrigerating, are not only unnecessary but undermine the quality of the pasta. Marcella Says (heh) that fresh pasta should be dried if not used right away. She suggests that fresh pasta be dried in nests on towels for 24 hours and then stored like any other dried pasta, not in the refrigerator.

I have not made fresh pasta but am merely passing along what I've read in her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.

Edited January 1, 2005 by esvoboda (log)

[Jason Perlow]

Marcella Hazan is wrong. A fresh pasta maker specializing in cut to order egg noodles who's been doing it over 100 years -- Borgatti's in the Bronx -- Has told me that fresh pasta can be frozen for several months before it declines in quality. Thats why I buy several pounds of it at a time whenever I go there.

[albiston]

Marcella Hazan is wrong. A fresh pasta maker specializing in cut to order egg noodles who's been doing it over 100 years -- Borgatti's in the Bronx -- Has told me that fresh pasta can be frozen for several months before it declines in quality. Thats why I buy several pounds of it at a time whenever I go there.

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Absolutely agree. Fresh pasta, and egg pasta dough, can be frozen without any problem. When I was still in Italy me and my relatives would make hundreds of ravioli and anolini (small tortellini from Mantua) and lots of fresh tagliatelle for Christmas. Usually there were always quite a few more than actually needed. They were frozen and saved for later. The last ones often became our Easter pasta course. Still pretty tasty after a few month's time.

Tagliatelle and similar non-stuffed pasta can be dried easily but if you plan to do this in large scale you might want to build yourself a drying frame: simply a rectangular wodden frame holding a sheet of plastic fine mesh netting (like mosquito netting for example). That way the pasta will dry from above and below, removing the need to turn the pasta around from time to time.

[Kevin72]

Yeah, I never understand the aversion some notables in the field have to recommending freezing the pasta. I spend an afternoon and make several batches and toss it in the freezer. No noticable decline in quality whatsoever.

The two times I tried drying it resulted in mold forming on one batch and the other batch was so brittle that it disentegrated when I picked it up. Freezing is so much easier and low maintenance.

[polack]

I could remember when I made fresh pasta and had it drying on wooden dowels, across a couple of chairs. While it was drying me and my wife had to do some shopping, and upon our return we entered the house and my wife started to laugh uncontrolably, when I looked at what she was laughing at all I could see were little pieces of pasta left on the dowels. Here our black lab was home alone and of course she got a little hungry and ate the pasta, all of it with the exception of maybe a 3" piece on each strand that was hanging.

[Anna N]

Who knew! Just might make some pasta again soon if I can freeze it. I too, tried drying it and had to toss it out. Not that I make very good pasta to begin with but it is worth another shot if I can freeze some. Thanks.

[EdS]

Marcella Hazan is wrong....

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How dare you question authority?

[Jensen]

I'd heard somewhere that fresh pasta made with eggs did not dry very well at all. I'm pretty sure my sister told me this and, while y'all might question Marcella Hazan's bona fides when it comes to pasta, you'd better not diss my sister...

( )

I like the idea that it can be frozen though.

[...tm...]

Marcella Hazan is wrong....

Well, I would say not so much wrong as imprecise. If you want your fresh pasta to taste like fresh pasta the next time you have it, freeze it. To me it tastes very similar to freshly made, although I've occasionally had some problems with sticking, even when I thought I had tossed them in enough flour.

However, I really enjoy the little bit of extra bite that drying gives to my homemade, soft flour/egg pasta. Not quite the al dente texture of a commercial semolina/water dried noodles, but definately more texture than fresh fresh pasta. So, to me, dried fresh pasta is a good thing, but not at all the same thing as fresh pasta.

And a semi-related question, for anyone besides Marcella and me who like to dry our fresh pasta: I recently made some red (tomato) and green (parsley) and chocolate fettuccine for christmas presents, but was dissapointed in the drying. I hung them from a rack and all the noodles curled significantly such that I couldn't tie them up into a nice, neat, flat package. I don't know if it was because my dough was a little moister that usual with the additions or if some freakish atmospheric conditions caused the bowing. I'd dried standard fettucine before without this problem, but maybe I was just lucky. If anyone has any tips to avoid unsightly bending please let me know.

[DaleJ]

I make pasta just about every weekend (recreation?) and always freeze it, both fettucini and ravioli with various stuffings. I now find that to avoid glopping together its best to freeze the stuff separated on a plate or sheet pan for an hour or so before placing in freezer bags. Keeps forever.

[RETREVR]

I agree that stuffed pastas can be individualy frozen and then bagged. I have had little luck drying my pasta. I becomes very brittle and breaks up upon cooking. If I am going to use it the next day, I will go ahead and cook it, shock it, and refrigerate.

Any recomendations on adjusting a recipe for drying pasta? My pasta is a combo if semo and AP flour egg and oil. Any idea on how the percentage of semo helps or hurts a pasta hold up when dry?

[Jason Perlow]

I make pasta just about every weekend (recreation?) and always freeze it, both fettucini and ravioli with various stuffings.  I now find that to avoid glopping together its best to freeze the stuff separated on a plate or sheet pan for an hour or so before placing in freezer bags.  Keeps forever.

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Borgatti in the Bronx tosses the pasta with cornmeal when they package it up right after cutting. They portion your order into 1 pound peices, toss it with the cornmeal, and then wrap each portion up in butcher paper.

[chefdg]

Usually pasta that will be dried is made from only semolina flour and water, with maybe just a pinch of salt. Whereas fresh pasta is made with wheat flour, egg, water, and salt. Of coarse if you make a lot of fresh pasta you can freeze it to give it a longer shelf life, it will only keep for about four or five days in the fridge.

[ianeccleston]

*bump*

I thought I'd share this failure in the kitchen so others don't make the same mistake: I made a double batch of lasagne noodles and left them out to dry, per Marcella's instructions on drying pasta. Unfortunately, the noodles curled up, and broke in many places, owing to how brittle they became. Next time I'll freeze them, or use them day of, unless someone has a better idea.

Ian

[slkinsey]

Yea. The problem with drying fresh pasta is that it doesn't really have the strength to withstand drying and storage. It's not designed for that, and I would go so far as to suggest that the properties that confer good drying/storage characteristics are inimical to the Emilia Romanan pasta aesthetic.

[Jmahl]

W've been making pasta for years generally using a 100% simolina, egg and small amount of water for dough. We use an old Bravettada that we got at a yard sale years ago. No problem freezing or drying. Just hang the pasta over a broom stick resting on the back of two chairs -- Keep the dog away if you have one. Also keeps in the frig for a few days. Hope this helps.

[alamut]

That is a BEAUTIFUL big red device. It makes me embarrassed when I think of my dinky little pasta machine ( which I do love). Anyhow, I just wanted to chime in and suggest that some pastas dry better than others. When we in the US of A make our pasta (or buy frozen fresh gourmet pasta) it is generally softer egg based pasta. Some recipes call for as many as 4 eggs in a one pound pasta recipe (way too many for my taste), but generally its less than half of that. Egg pasta represents the cooking of the more wealthy northern Italy. In the South pasta is generally made with flour and water (or a splash of white wine?) chefdg is right in saying that Semolina and water produces a harder, Sicilian style, more dryable noodle. Trying to dry egg based lasagne noodles might well result in them cracking up like ianeccleston reported.

If your going to try and dry pasta using 2/3 Semolina 1/3 AP flour mix with just water added. Also I would suggest that you make the pasta in some sort of extruder as apposed to the roller/cutter approach. If you have a mixer, you should be able to by a meat grinder style pasta extruder attachment to mount on the front/top of it. Kitchen Aid has a few nice attachments for this purpose. One thing that you can do with dried pasta is get those wacky noodle shapes, so why miss out on the fun. But yes, when drying it, please keep it away from the dog.

[slkinsey]

With respect to making pasta asciutta (aka dried semolina pasta) at home, I've tried it any number of times and with any number of technologies. Ultimately, I determined that it's a lot of trouble to take for something that won't be nearly the same quality as a good artisanal brand like Setaro or Latini.

For preserving fresh egg pasta, nothing maintains the same quality it has when it's truly freshly made. But freezing seems to be the best alternative.