Conference turris::cooks

Mine's the old fashioned kind, but once you try your own noodles you'll
never buy boxed!  They freeze well, too, so make it in big batches.
ANd you own lasagna........!!!!  I can't stand talking about it!
You have to be careful, though...it cooks very fast.  It's so much lighter
than the boxed kind.  And it goes alot further, too.  One tip if you're
going to freeze: make sure that the noodles are COMPLETELY dry before
you freeze them or else they will become paste-y when cooked.  
You're gonna love it!

Sue

I've only used mine once, but it sure made good noodles.  I have the
attachment to my food processor.  It is fun to make artichoke, carrot,
etc., noodles - try your local "gourmet" store for interesting pasta
flours.  The only real tip I can offer is one a friend passed on to
me the first time I used my machine: it is nearly impossible to clean the
extrusion disks when the pasta stuff stuck to them is damp.  She suggested
leaving it sit for up to several days until bone-dry, and then whacking it
against the side of the sink to dislodge the remains - worked fine!  At
first I was afraid I was going to get to use each disk once, and then be
left with a collection of hopelessly-stuck unusable ones.  Oh, the disks
to my machine are made of hard, slippery plastic (might by lexan), and you
are not supposed to scratch them, like by poking things through the holes
to clean them out, lest you cause the pasta dough to stick when you are
using them.  Most pasta flour comes with collections of recipes for
easy-to-make sauces, and the "funny" flours, while colorful, taste about
the same as plain pasta flour.  The recipes that came with my machine
called for regular unbleached flour like you would use to make bread,
which is certainly easy to come by, but which reputedly produces a
somewhat softer pasta than the semolina.

I don't have an electric pasta machine, but the one I have works fine.
I usually use a mixture of semolina and white bread flour to about a
50:50 ratio and just keep adding eggs until you get a dough as you
knead it. You might add just a touch of salt into the flour also.


						Robert Sarao

    Hi!  I haven't been in this conference in a very long time.  In fact
    I've changed my name from Nelson to Resende since the last time I wrote
    here.  I'm back, and this time I need advice on a pasta machine.  I'm
    ready to take the plunge, but can't decide what to buy!!! 
    
    I got the attachment kit for my Kitchenaid mixer at Christmas. 
    I could buy a set of pasta plates for it and be ready to go -- the
    set comes with thick and thin spaghetti, flat noodles, and lasagna
    plates.  That leaves out fettucini, one of my favorites.  Perhaps
    I could just cut the fettucini by hand when I want to  make it.
    
    Here's my dilemma:
    
    A friend of mine who makes homemade pasta advised me against any sort
    of electric machine.  He says you need to run the dough through over
    and over at decreasing thicknesses, and you can't do that with an
    electric machine like my mixer attachment. 
    
    Can anyone shed any light on this?  Can I knead the dough with the
    dough hook in my mixer and achieve the same effect as running it
    through the pasta machine again and again?
    
    Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated...
    
    							Pat Resende

>    A friend of mine who makes homemade pasta advised me against any sort
>    of electric machine.  He says you need to run the dough through over
>    and over at decreasing thicknesses, and you can't do that with an
>    electric machine like my mixer attachment. 

Mere snobbery.  I've made pasta completely by hand (with rolling pin,) by 
hand-cranked pasta machine and by attachment of a gizmo to my Cuisinart. 
They are all equally good, and the gizmo is faster.

Kneading with a dough hook would probably make the pasta tough.  Follow 
the directions that come with the attachment and you'll do just fine. 

					>>>==>PStJTT

    We have the pasta plates for our KitchenAid as well as a hand-crank
    machine.  Personally, I've had more luck with the hand-crank.  The
    pasta plates with the KitchenAid seem to have the openings for the
    pasta very close together.  This makes it difficult to keep the
    strands separated as they come out.  Or maybe we just never caught
    the hang of it.
    
    The pasta plates haven't been a total loss though.  We do a lot
    of canning and jamming and have used the plates to vary the sizes
    in our preserves.  Aren't KitchenAids great?
    
    Lynne

    Well, we bought the pasta plates for the KitchenAid (before .6 was
    entered).  We've tried them twice.  Some work OK, some we couldn't get
    to work at all.  The flat noodle one was the biggest failure; the
    noodles come out in a big glob and we found it totally impossible to
    separate them.  The spaghetti worked somewhat better, and of course the
    lasagna noodle requires no separating so it was no problem at all. I'll
    keep them, 'cause they'll do things like macaroni that have to be
    extruded instead of rolled, but it's not going to work for everything.
    I went ahead and bought the good ol' manual kind.  Haven't tried it
    yet, but I anticipate better results. 
    
    Re .-2:  Seems the Cuisinart attachment works well for people, but
    the KitchenAid plates don't.  Wonder what the engineering differences
    are in the two gizmos?
    
    BTW, in case anyone gets a bad impression of the KitchenAid from
    this note, let me assure you it's a WONDERFUL kitchen tool (aside
    from its pasta-making ability).  I'd recommend one to absolutely
    anybody!
    
    							Pat
    
    P.S.  To those of you who responded:  thanks for the advice!

>    to work at all.  The flat noodle one was the biggest failure; the
>    noodles come out in a big glob and we found it totally impossible to
>    separate them.  ...

Perhaps making the dough a bit drier would help?

						     
							- JP

    
    On the note of homemade pasta, does anybody know who now sells
    the Simak 800 pastamaker. I know that Jordan Marsh sold it but they
    discontinued the line about a year ago and I haven't found anyone
    else in Central Mass. I used to have one in France and it was absolute
    fantastic, except for the cleaning....
    
    Thanks
    
    Peter  

Re: .7

	I agree with .8; I think it'll work better if you put a little 
more flour in.  When I started working with the Cuisinart pasta maker, I 
didn't believe how dry the "beads" had to be, so I screwed up a couple 
of batches.  I certainly couldn't have worked that stuff by hand.  (Does 
kitchen Aid recommend making a batch of dry "beads" and feeding them to 
the extruder?  That's how it works for the Cuisinart, but I'm not sure 
how similar pasta machines are.)

	Since you already bought the hand-cranked machine, by all means 
use it.  It's fun for a few times.  After that, I think you'll either go 
back to the Kitchen Aid with a wealth of experience that will help you 
make better pasta, or you'll start buying Prince...

					>>>==>PStJTT

    Well, I used the hand-crank machine this weekend, and the result
    was DELICIOUS!!!!  The temptation is to never, never use anything
    else.
    
    In addition to being nearly impossible to separate, the Kitchenaid
    noodles came out awfully thick.  They take a very long time to cook,
    and remind me of the Alka-Seltzer dumpling (anyone remember that
    commercial?).  A drier dough would solve the first problem, but I
    wonder if it wouldn't make the second problem worse?  The Kitchenaid
    recipe was 3/4 lb. of flour, 4 eggs, and 1 Tbsp. water.  The recipe for
    the manual crank machine was 1 lb. flour and 5 eggs.  Same proportions
    'cept for the water. 
    
    At any rate, maybe I'll go back to the Kitchenaid method someday.
    Right now my husband and I are looking forward to eating more of
    the stuff I made this weekend!
    
    Thanks, everyone, for all your help!
    
    							Pat

We got into this a little bit in the other replies.  I have a
Cuisinart pasts maker attachment (extruder), and find that it does as
good a job as hand-made or pasta made with a hand-cranked machine.  Some
people disagree. (No surprise -- this is a notesfile after all.) 

If you guys eat a lot of pasta, and you're the types that like to spend 
a lot of time preparing food, then any of the above methods would be 
fine.  If you really like to get your hands on things, then the 
hand-cranked machine might be more fun.  If you like to whip up a batch 
of something and then throw the tools in the dishwasher, the Cuisinart 
might be a better choice.  

If you like macaroni or any other sort of tubular pasta, then you'll
have to use an extruder.  The Cuisinart only makes small macaroni as a
tubular form (unless they've come out with new extruder plates.)  For
the larger/fancier forms you'd have to go to a specialty machine like a
Simac. 

The simac is serious money.  The Cuisinart attachment is less money, but 
still not cheap.  The hand-cranked machines are fairly inexpensive, and 
making pasta by hand just requires a rolling pin which is the absolute 
least expensive choice.  Money seems to trade off for ease of 
preparation and cleanup.
					Hope this helps,
					>>>==>PStJTT

    I have the Cuisinart extruder, but use it only very infrequently.
    The gears inside it broke once (under warranty) while it was extruding
    a bunch of macaroni, so it had to be sent back.  It is fun to use,
    and homemade macaroni is fun (and tasty).  The extruder plates are
    a real pain to clean.  The people I bought it from said to leave
    the plate out, let the dough inside dry out completely so that it
    shrinks a little, and then bang it against the side of the sink
    to knock the hardened dough out.  This eventually works.  If you
    don't clean the inside of the extruder right away, though, you end
    up with a real mess.  The amount of humidity in the dough mixture
    is absolutely critical to the thing's working at all - if the dough
    is too sticky, it will not extrude, and if it is too dry, the resulting
    pasta falls apart.
    
    So, it is a fun thing to watch, but I'm not sure if it was really
    worth buying.

>                            The people I bought it from said to leave
>    the plate out, let the dough inside dry out completely so that it
>    shrinks a little, and then bang it against the side of the sink
>    to knock the hardened dough out.  

That's the method Cuisinart recommends.  If you let it dry out for a
day and then just bang the plate down smartly on the counter (flat 
with the side that was facing the screw down) it should all pop out in 
one whack.  At least it does for me.

Sometimes I use the same method for cleaning the retaining ring, other 
times I just toss it into the dishwasher with the rest of the parts.  
That seems to clean it up just fine.  I've never had to clean the 
machine right away.

>                           The amount of humidity in the dough mixture
>    is absolutely critical to the thing's working at all - if the dough
>    is too sticky, it will not extrude, and if it is too dry, the resulting
>    pasta falls apart.

This is the absolute truth.  It takes a few tries to get the right level
of moisture in the beads.  My extruder came without the instruction
book, so I had to experiment.  I find that it's fairly easy to tell when
the beads are right once you know what made a good batch.  One large egg
to a cup of semolina flour works well for me, but occasionally I have to
put in a few drops of water.  I never have gotten around to getting an
instruction book, so they might have some recommendations that make it
easier to find the right consistency. 

>    So, it is a fun thing to watch, but I'm not sure if it was really
>    worth buying.

I both agree and disagree.  I've used mine and enjoy it.  But I don't 
know that I use it enough to make it worth the money it cost.  Fresh 
pasta does taste good, but I don't know that the incremental taste 
matches the incremental cost.  For me it's moot, since I already have 
the gadget.  
					>>>==>PStJTT

    Well, it takes more like a week for the gunk stuck in the extruder
    disk to get completely dried out, except during the dead of winter,
    or something; you definitely can't use it again the next day, anyhow.
    You can make multi-colored pasta if you extrude one bunch at a time
    - I suppose you could make a whole bunch this way and then dry some
    for later, if you were really into homemade pasta.
    
    I really think that a hand-crank machine would have been more useful
    - it would be fun to make stuffed things, like agnoletti, sometimes.
    

    I hope this note is still being read!!!
    
    I received a pasta attachment for my Kitchen-Aid as a gift.  I've
    only tried it twice, but loving it!  However, I have a
    problem/question... How long can you store homemade pasta and
    what is the best method for storing?
    
    I've read through this entire note and really didn't find much on
    storing.  The manual with the Kitchen-Aid just says to store in
    a plastic bag.
    
    Help!!!
    
    /Annemarie

    
    Freeze it, it should keep 3 to 4 months.

    A friend's mom & dad used to make noodles to sell locally, and they
    would hang them over clothes lines in the basement until totally
    dry.  Then they just put them in big zip lock bags.  If you do this,
    though, make sure they are bone dry, and you might want to check
    periodically for moisture in the bag.  The ones they sold they had
    commercially bagged.
    
    tw

    Try a "gourmet" store.  I get pasta flour at Duck Soup (Sudbury, MA).
    The stuff is so hard, though, that I actually cracked a gear in my
    pasta attachment trying to extrude it - it makes a very stiff dough
    indeed when it has the right amount of water in it to be extruded at
    all (we have a pasta extruder that fits on the "wonderful machine" -
    the Cuisinart food processor, which we use almost daily - I don't think
    we've used the pasta extruder since it came back from getting fixed
    after that incident).  If you have a pasta machine that rolls the
    sheets of dough, though, semolina is just what you need.

I'm pretty sure I've seen it at Alexanders, in the Post Road Plaza
on Route 101A -- I think it's officially Merrimack, but it's the
stretch of 101a that runs between NAshua and Amherst.

Try the last aisle in the store, the left side is Dairy (butter, eggs,
cottage cheese, sour cream, juices, etc.) and the right side is
Gourmet; there is one sub-section that has boxes of imported pasta
and also has some types of pasta flour.  Maybe semolina?


Jan

    
    Semolina is widely used in oriental cuisine. I've bought it in
    Alexander's (the one in Hudson, but the Nashua/Merrimack ones should
    carry it too), though if memory serves it was in the oriental section
    rather than the gourmet section.
    
    Of course now I'm back in England it's much easier to find (semolina
    pudding has strong memories of childhood, and terrible school dinners
    for me :-)
    
    /. Ian .\

    On Rt 28 in the plaza across from Granite State Potato chips (I
    don't know the name) there is an Italian delli "Giovanies", I bought
    semolina flower there last week, $1.69 for a 1.5lb box, it's on
    the right as you walk in 2 shelvs up from the floor, about 10 feet
    from the door end.
    
    Hope this helps
    Les

I found it at the East/West Foods in the Lamplighter Sq.across from the 
Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua off of DW Highway. This is mainly an India food
store - lots of rice, curry and spices etc. Prices are .99 for 2lb or $2.25 for 5lb
(603)888-7521

Thanks for the help.... now off to make noodles this weekend!

    It's been a while since there was any activity in this note, but
    since I got my Atlas, I've been perusing the pasta notes and wanted
    to add that I use 3+ cups bread flour and one carton Eggbeaters.
    I have a set of James Beard books, one on bread and one on pasta,
    and he said since bread flour is made from hard wheat, it will work.
    And it's easier to find!  Instead of drying mine, I freeze it in
    small batches or nests, then store them all in zip locks.  It seems
    to cook up almost as fast as fresh.   Letting the dough rest an
    hour or so seems to make it easier to roll out, too.
    
    I have a question about lasagne though - I haven't tried it yet
    and wondered what thinness should you roll it to, and do you have
    to let it dry, or will it work ok fresh or relatively fresh?

    BTW - fresh pasta makes wonderful chow mein, too.  
    
    Terry
    

We roll out lasagna noodles paper-thin (setting 7 on the Atlas), then use lots
and lots of them.  In fact, when you're putting the lasagna together, you think
it's going to be dry as a bone because there seems to be so little sauce in
proportion to the number of noodles.  But it isn't dry at all.  We make a total
of 6 layers out of the following:

pasta made from 1-1/3 cups flour and 2 eggs
about 2 cups Bolognese sauce (maybe a little more)
about 3 cups bechamel (maybe a little less)
about 1 cup of fresh grated Parmesan

It's wonderful!

BTW, we haven't ever tried drying lasagna noodles, but Pat read somewhere that
they'll fall apart if you try and dry them very long.  We usually cook them
within a couple of hours of rolling.

Good luck!  Isn't homemade pasta wonderful????

Steve

    re: .27
    
    Thanks for the tips, Steve.  I tried Pat's hot pepper pasta recipe
    and it was great, so this one is now on my pending list!  I haven't
    made lasagne with bechemel sauce, but I've seen it on TV and in
    enough books that it's time try it.  Plus, my husband who says he
    doesn't like a lot of red sauce may be more inclined to eat it!
    
    Terry
    

	Hi,

	I've read through all the notes on Pasta and cannot seem to find
	exactly what I want.

	I got a handcranked Pasta Machine for Xmas and the directions
	were pretty sketchy.  I also have a cookbook on pasta but the
	directions were bad there too.  To make my pasta, I put two
	beaten eggs and 1-1/2 cups of flour, sifted, into my food 
	processor.  I turned it on and let it whir for a minute or two
	and I got crumbs.  I managed to push the crumbs together and 
	start rolling it through my pasta machine.  I didn't knead the 
	dough at all.  I also didn't dry it, but rather, cooked it 
	immediately (I was getting too hungry to wait anymore).  The 
	pasta took several minutes to cook but tasted pretty good...

	Anyhow, what I need is directions to make basic pasta without a
	food processor but with a hand cranked machine.  The problem
	with my food processor is that it only has one speed thus I
	got crumbs.  I used the plastic attachment to mix.  

	What is the advantage of drying?  Is it necessary if you want
	to eat it immediately?

	Karen

	Rep .29


	Here's what I do for my hand crank pasta machine,


	1 Cup A.P. flour 
	1 egg
	1 Tbsp olive oil
	about 1/4 Cup very cold water

	Mix all the above until it forms a ball adding about half of the 
	water to start. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and cut
	the ball into quarters. Take one quarter and flatten out with your
	hand and with the pasta machine set to the widest setting roll
	the dough through three or four times. After each time through 
	the machine fold the dough by thirds. Then do the same with the
	other dough quarters. Then roll out the pieces to the desired 
	thickness. It will take you a few times to the hang of it. 

	You can also add things like herbs, spices, ... to the basic
	dough to make flavored pasta's. I prefer to use it fresh and not
 	bother drying it.


	-mike

Sometimes, if the dough is too moist, it will "melt" back together when you try
to cut it.  You can let the dough dry a bit after rolling to solve this problem.

On the other hand, if it is too dry, there is nothing for the cutting rollers to
grab and it will just sit there and not slice at all.  You could try putting it
between paper towels and spray with water, and let it sit a while.

I usually use egg beaters instead of eggs, that way I can add exactly enough egg
to get the right texture.

I started out with a paperback book on pasta written by a Sophie something?  I
don't remember the name.  It was good because it listed every technique you can
think of, from the hand mixing on a board, to food processors, rolling and 
cutting by hand to rolling machines, to extruders, etc.  It included a lot of
basic and flavored recipe alternatives, as well as pasta menus.

Don't get discouraged if things don't work out right in the beginning.  It took
me a while to get pasta that came out right every time.  Now I don't even think
about what I'm doing, just a little of this, a bit of that, etc.

I've done garlic, mushroom, basil, "pesto", chili pepper, parmesan, lemon, ...

    Just made some pasta last weekend. My recipe :
    
    1 3/4 c. flour (I never sift, too  lazy!)
    1 or 2 eggs (depends on what I'm serving it with). I was serving it
    plain, with no sauce, so I used two eggs for a richer pasta.
    2 Tablespoons of water
    
    I mix it up by hand on the counter, making a well to drop the egg(s)
    and water into the flour...no bowl to clean up, until it sticks together, 
    then use the roller section to knead it for me.  I just crank it
    through at the widest setting, fold it over, crank it through, etc, etc 
    until it's smooth. Then I start decreasing the space until it reaches the 
    lowest setting, then through the cutter rollers.  Took about 20 minutes 
    from start to finish.  In that time the water had come up to the boil and 
    it took 2 minutes to cook.  Not a heck of a lot longer than dry, packaged 
    pasta, and 10 times better flavor and texture.  You'll probably try 
    skipping some of the settings to speed the rolling process, but it's not 
    worth it. Do it step by step, one setting at a time, or you'll end up with
    torn sheets. I don't bother to dry it, either.  I just toss it right in 
    the water immediately.  Some people let it rest, some dry it.  You can 
    freeze uncooked pasta, also. If you have a food processor, you'll be
    able to do it even faster. (but then, you'll have more to clean up...my
    least favorite thing to do, as you can tell : ) By the way, this recipe
    fed 6 adults as a side dish, and two munchkins (my 3 year old son and 4
    year old neice, who were an immense help when rolling out the dough and
    ate a large bowl of the stuff because they made it themselves).
    Sarah

    
    You might also want to try semolina flour sometime, if you can find
    it. I've had much better luck making pasta with semolina than with
    all-purpose flour--the dough gets smoother quicker with less kneading
    and seems to go through the machine easier.  The end product also
    stands up better...
    
    

I learned how to make pasta by hand with one of those machines from my 
grandmother about 20 years ago.  Actually, she showed me by rolling the
dough around a broom handle and then hand-cutting it, but my dad decided 
that was too much work and got me the machine.  In fact, when I left
home after college, that was the only thing he wouldn't let me take with me.

The basic rule of thumb that I have always used is 1 egg per person and
1 - 1 1/2 cups of flour per egg.  For 6 eggs, I add about 1/4 cup of water
and use about 6-7 cups of flour.  Knead the dough on a well-floured board,
and cut the dough into rounds.  Let the rounds dry for an hour or so.  Put
the rounds through the machine to flatten them out into longs strips at a
thick setting.  Let the strips dry for a bit.  Put the strips back through
the machine roller at the thinnest setting you want, and let them dry again.
Put the strips through the cutter of the machine to make the type of pasta
you want.  I prefer the egg noodle thickness, but the spaghetti thickness is
also fine.  I like to let the noodles dry before cooking as I think they don't
stick together as much while cooking, though a little oil in the cooking water
helps with that also.

Boil for about 1-3 minutes or til done al dente.