Lon's comment on his shrimp scampi and other pastas he enjoys has re-piqued my interest in making homemade pasta. It's one of those "someday I gotta try it" things I've never gotten around to. I'm inclined to buy the Kitchen Aid attachments for my stand mixer, but the complete Kitchen Aid brand set is $500!! That ain't gonna happen. I suspect if the pasta is any good, I'd like to make sheet pasta (ravioli, tortellini) in addition to noodles. Has anyone here made it? Do you have recommendations on pasta machines? Is it worth messing with? Or should I just buy the refrigerated stuff at the grocery store?
Me, me!! I have all the Kitchenaid pasta attachments and a free-standing Philips pasta machine. I have a wooden pasta drying rack and the whole 9 yards. Making pasta is fun for the first few times, and then it becomes a chore and it's back to store-bought. So my advice: save your money. Or buy an old fashioned crank-style and play with it. An Italian friend says that's the best way. The Philips went to stay with my son last December and I hope he will keep it. My daughter has the Kitchenaid attachments and I hope she will keep them. (I don't think I paid anywhere near $500 for those...???) There is a lonely bag of semolina in the freezer that I drag out to dust on the pizza stone, the last remnant of my pasta-making career.
We have made pasta many times and there is quite a difference between hand made and store bought. We purchased a little hand crank roller as well as a ravioli form. Should have saved our money on the ravioli form because they are super simple to make without and much easier. As mentioned above .. it can be a chore but it just depends upon how much time you have to play.
Thanks, folks. Yeh, I've always been a dabbler. Once I master something I really don't want to mess with it again. And even at that, I only eat pasta once a week at the most. I was looking at this on Amazon: I agree about the special attachments, Maggie. If it puts out a sheet, I can make ravioli, tortellini and other shapes. This one is under $70 and comes with a spaghetti and fettuccine attachment. Anyone have a tried & true pasta recipe they'd care to share? The ones I see are basically egg noodles with white flour. That don't sound Italian.
That's the kind you want. As for pasta recipes... that's basically it. You can experiment with different types of flour... semolina, etc., but it's basically a bit of oil, egg, salt and flour and sometimes a small amount of water. Here's a Lidia Bastianich recipe https://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/fresh-egg-pasta/ I have several of Lidia's cookbooks and they are excellent. You will find that cleaning up the pasta roller is easy, no matter which one you buy. The pasta hardens and will basically "flake" off without a lot of fuss. Oh, and you don't "need" a drying rack, either. Just put a clean towel over the back of a chair and drape your noodles, so to speak. (Or make those little noodle 'nests'.)
Thanks, Beth. I just got back from grocery shopping in the big city, and I could not find semolina flour. I thought that's what all pastas were made of. I've done my share of egg noodles for soups & stews. I'm somewhat surprised. There's no difference between the Italians and the Amish. I like Lidia, especially when she brings her mother on the set. edit to add: I just did a quick search. I can make pasta dough in my stand mixer! No kneading...
Yeah, you can make the dough by hand or in a food processor, too. As far as flour, the only type I didn't care for was whole wheat. But then, I seldom like the outcome of anything I've made with whole wheat flour... even bread. Cutting noodles by hand sounds like too much work; I'll admit I never even tried.
I agree about wheat flour. I've made lots of breads and rolls but stick with store-bought whole wheat sandwich (loaf) bread. I just can't seem to find a recipe or method I like that has any amount of whole wheat in it. I just read a Spruce Eats article that said making dough for "stuffing pastas" (ravioli or tortellini) should be done with semolina flour and water...no eggs. Apparently the protein in the egg will break down the gluten in the pasta and it will tear...something you don't want when there's filling to be contained. Other than that, there really does not seem to be a "purist" argument out there saying "if it's not semolina, it's not pasta!" The main "pro-semolina" argument seems to be that its rougher texture gives sauce a place to cling. I just splurged on some refrigerated-section pasta and high quality Parmigiano-Reggiano for my scampi tonight. Since there's just shrimp and no real sauce to disguise it, I thought I'd "go quality." Now I gotta scale a recipe that has 1# shrimp/1# pasta down to a single serving. Also gonna put together my 3 Day Rise pizza dough this evening so it's ready for dinner Sunday and I can test that function of my Breville. One Fontina cheese pizza and one regular pizza on the menu! Pizza is not a cheap meal, either.
I ordered the machine pictured above from EBay. I went to buy it from Amazon and now it's out of stock, "Not Certain If Ever Available Again" status. I went on EBay, found one that saved me about $10 delivered, AND it has a tray that attaches to the back as a support for the sheet of pasta as you feed it into the machine. Now I'm on the search for the right semolina. I could not find this in my local stores, and the online products have a large offering targeted to the Indian market. There's an Indian grocery in Charlottesville that I get spices from I'll swing by and see what they've got. I see fine and coarse grinds. The Indian stuff is primarily coarse ground, and the Amazon comments claim that folks have made pasta with it, but I find no definitive "coarseness" opinion elsewhere on the web...just lots of capitulation ("What do you mean by coarse?") Although some say that "too coarse" will shred the gluten. I've got time to read some more. The machine is gonna take a week to get here from the west coast.
Semolina dough is not as sticky as regular flour dough and has a firmer texture. I used Bob's Red Mill semolina, available at most larger grocery stores. Semolina is also perfect for using on a pizza peel, especially to "load" a fresh pizza onto the heated stone without sticking. Just dust the peel (or baking sheet) lightly before putting the crust down. My biggest fear when first making spaghetti/vermicelli was that it would disintegrate into floury paste when it hit the cooking water. Such a thrill when it did not.
I've always read that the coarse stuff is what you use on a pizza peel. Honestly, I've never had luck putting raw dough on a stone...the pizza always seers itself to the stone. I keep the pizza on a round pan until it sets up, then slide it onto the stone to crisp & finish.
Well, thanks a lot. Now I'm wanting a Kitchenaid "Pasta Press." Appealing because you don't have to roll the dough.
@John Brunner -- I forgot to mention that King Arthur has a particularly good flour/baking selection. If you have never checked out their website, do so ASAP. https://shop.kingarthurflour.com/items/pasta-flour-blend-3-lb
@Beth Gallagher Thanks for that. I've been over there every once in a while. I found it via a bread forum where someone turned me on to diastastic malt powder. I like their flour (I think I mentioned that before), but I'm not on their website very often. It looks like their pasta flour is a blend. I read elsewhere that people only use 30%-50% semolina and the rest white. I tell you, it's disappointing to see the "scratch" ingredients offering shrinking in grocery stores. I went to Kroeger and then another major store (Giant Food) this morning. Made a 55 mile round trip. Their flour and baking selection is horribly meager. I've struggled with this before. Giant Food hides its flour on a single bottom shelf behind a support pole, about 4 packages across and a couple deep. And this is the middle of Charlottesville, where people like me come from outlaying areas to shop. Maybe I should hit Harris Teeter next time.
There has been a general shortage of scratch ingredients since the pandemic hysteria. For the longest time I couldn't find any yeast; very frustrating.