I use the recipes that were supplied with the pasta maker, I believe they were an egg & water combo. I was surprised how good the pasta was. With two supermarkets and three Italian delis all making fresh pasta nearby, plus a fresh pasta store where that's all they make I really haven't had any need to make it. What the Italian delis carrying a great selection of dry pasta I'm I'm in heaven. The only pasta my mouth has been watering for is margarita they've been off the market for for years, it kinda looks like a mafalda cut in half.
I will never put my skills up against any woman who's grown up cooking ethcic food, or any other food. I watched some vids of those Italian women in back alleys cranking out pasta shapes on their tables while looking at the camera and smiling, not even paying attention to the factory at the end of their arms. ps: I found out when I was looking up the show that it's "Lidia." Lidia Giuliana Matticchio Bastianich.
You do those look really good, yay one looks really rich more like an egg noodle dough. They must be really tasty. We've kind of evolved used to be with pasta and to make meatballs we only use parmesan or Romano cheeses, now for pasta we get it at BJ's most of the time it's the mix of Romano, parmesan, asiago and Fontina. I hope I got the correct mix, we also will put out ricotta cheese on the table if anybody would like to mix it with there pasta.
You know Lydia's mother just passed away recently. I have two or three of her cookbooks. One of my favorite cookbooks is an older one Mama Leone, recipes from her famous restaurant in New York City. Very old school recipes.
I got started when Lon Tanner posted a pic of his shrimp scampi dinner. Given my lack if food impulse control, I had to have some, so I went to the store and bought some of the refrigerated stuff. Then I realized I should just be making my own. This was at the onset of COVID restrictions when I decided to spend my restaurant money on upping my game in my kitchen. I bought a high-end convection oven, a sous vide machine, a dehydrator, and a hand-crank pasta machine. If I had Italian markets nearby I might not have messed with that pasta machine. I've not heard of margarita pasta, nor can I find it on the web. There are so many different types I've not tried. I'm not interested in buying an extruder. I attempted to make semolina shapes once (I bought a grooved board), but they did not turn out so well and I've not tried again.
OMG, I didn't know her mother passed away! I always loved seeing her with Lidia. I also have a few of Lidia's cookbooks and I knew her name was spelled with an "i"; I just wasn't thinking about it. Luckily Brunner was on the job and saved Hal from having to correct me.
There was a small Italian restaurant outside of DC I used to frequent, and they had the best white pizza. They told me it was made with sweet Fontina cheese, and at one point they attached a deli to the side of the place where you could go buy some of the ingredients they cooked with. When I make pizzas I still make a Fontina one and a red sauce one, although I've yet to find the quality Fontina that I got there. I've heard of folks serving ricotta as kind of a pasta condiment. I've never tried it that way.
I have the hand-crank pasta machine we use that to flatten the dough for raviolis. The other two electric machines will mix and knead the dough then push the dough thru the dies to shape it.
Kroeger grocery stores bought Murray's Cheeses, a well-known NYC cheese maker. They have Murray's kiosks in the stores, and fresh-cut cheese from the wheels. I've been using nothing but their cheese in my cooking lately. The parm-reggiano is out of this world, as is their mozzarella. It really makes a difference.
I'll readily admit that if I did not have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I would not make half the stuff I do. I would not be making pasta dough or pizzas or Italian bread if I had to knead by hand. That mixer has really opened up my world.
My younger days we would stop at a pizza place in Rockaway called New Park Pizza, I haven't had it in years and I hear the place it's still there. To this day I think it's the best pizza I ever had, there dough was something special. My father asked them why there dough was different, we were told they use milk rather than water in the mix.
Interesting. There is nothing like the uniqueness of each independent pizza place. I got stories of the ones that were around me when I was growing up. Heck, there's one I eat at out here in this rural county that's owned by a guy who barely speaks English and his wife, who speaks no English at all. There are maybe 5-6 small tables in the place, and a constant stream of carry out. Goodness knows how much business they do. Cash & checks, no credit cards. I can get a lunch of a salad, fried chicken wings, onion rings, plus a drink, and drop $7 including tax. His daughter has worked there probably her whole life (she's maybe mid 20s now.) His brother owns a place a few miles up the road that's a little larger. It's always crowded.