Who makes their own pasta? I need your help!

[Audeo]

I'd like to offer a special thanks to all of you for your thoughts and ideas!

I have learned that pasta, as with all things, requires practice, practice to be able to "intuit" the feel of the dough going in and coming out of the roller. And thanks to so many here, especially Darkstream, I have improved immensely...after about 35-40 tries since originally posting this thread. The agreements I have with all of you are too numerous to mention on a variety of points!

The biggest solution for me in making ravioli was employing a flouring/folding then re-rolling technique to create a much thinner pasta layer, moreover cooking the ravioli in barely simmerine broth, instead of a boiling solution. My family is truly much happier these days...!

Next on my OCD horizons is to continue practicing the flouring/folding/rolling thinner and thinner technique to produce a super-thin layer tantamount to phyllo pastry to make strudel!

(Best wishes and prayers are welcomed here....!)

 

[Claire]

Husband uses 1 egg to 3/4 cup AP flour, pinch of salt, with a very high success rate. For what it is worth, he uses egg beaters (I believe it is 1/4 cup=1 egg) more often than whole eggs (simply because it is easier to have them on hand). Yes, we did experiment with all kinds of supposedly more 'authentic' flours, but remember that the "authentic" flour is used with the "authentic" eggs and "authentic" other ingredients. Humidity, water, size of eggs, size of yolk, etc, differ from place to place, and plain old AP flour seems to work better than specialty flours.

He used to make all our pasta from scratch, but then we bought a pasta maker from hell (which I finally threw out). I'm now looking for a new one so we can get back to "normal". (In the past we've owned Atlas and Mercato, but this was an Imperia and it was so poorly milled that it shredded the dough instead of cutting it). If you have great friends with great kids, making pasta is a fun thing to do with them.

 

[subfuscpersona]

A NOTE ON FLOUR
This is a notorious problem in any international cooking forum...Basically, pasta is made from durham wheat, a hard (high in gluten) wheat that is also used in bread making...The recipes above use Canadian wholewheat and white durham flour. Since most of you appear to live in the USA, and Canada is just a stones throw away (comparatively), you SHOULD be able to get proper flour.

But if not, then you should use a strong bread flour. If it is not strong enough, you can add one or two tablespoons of cornflour to the wheat to increase the gluten content.

Hi Darkstream - I was re-reading this thread (most excellent advice!) but I'm confused why cornflour increases the gluten content. Please enlighten. TIA

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

If I felt I needed to increase the protien content, I would use vital wheat gluten. It's available in local supermarkets around here.

Seeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[subfuscpersona]

re - using cornflour to increase gluten content

A NOTE ON FLOUR
This is a notorious problem in any international cooking forum...Basically, pasta is made from durham wheat, a hard (high in gluten) wheat that is also used in bread making...you SHOULD be able to get proper flour...But if not, then you should use a strong bread flour. If it is not strong enough, you can add one or two tablespoons of cornflour to the wheat to increase the gluten content.

Hi Darkstream - I was re-reading this thread (most excellent advice!) but I'm confused why cornflour increases the gluten content. Please enlighten. TIA

If I felt I needed to increase the protien content, I would use vital wheat gluten.

So would I. To my knowledge cornflour contains no gluten. That's why I'm confused by Darkstream's recommendation.

 

[Michael in FtW]

I spent 6-months going crazy trying to figure this out .... but I now own an Italian/English - English/Italian dictionary .... and if you really want them I can point you to several on-line resources on "international" flour composition and grading.

Ah, yes .. flour .... there is NO way to get a direct comparison between American flours and European flours ... especially from France, Germany, or Italy since the US doesn't use the same grading methods. Since we're talking about pasta - I'll skip the French and German stuff ...

Dried pasta in Italy is, by law, only durham wheat flour and water. If the flour originates from durham wheat grown in Italy it is called Semolina. If it comes from flour ground from durham wheat grown in, and imported from, Canada it is called Mannitoba. In the US - durham wheat ground into flour, regardless of where it was grown, is either called Semolina or Durham Wheat flour.

American's can go nuts trying to find Italian "Type 00" flour to make "authentic" Italian homemade pasta (which is an egg pasta). Although I can not find any Italian source that states it specifically - Type 00 must relate to how finely the flour is milled since there are no less than 7 types of Type 00 flour, with different ash/protent/gluten contents all for different purposes. Italian flours seem to fall into two catagories - Type (a finer milled flour) and a Calibration (coarser milled). In Italy, you would just pick up a bag of "Type 00 for pasta" and be done with it.

In America, if we want to make "homemade pasta" comperable to Italian homemade noodles, it seems the Italian immigrants are right - just us plain old American AP flour.

What does an Italian in America do to make a more substantial pasta dough - like for lasagna noodles, manicotti, etc. ? They don't go rushing around looking for something special like corn flour, gluten flour, etc. - they just add an extra egg yolk to the recipe! Well, that is if you can trust the Italian cooks on TV such as Carlo Middione, Lidia Bastianich, Nick Stellino, or Biba Caggiano - and I swear I saw Mario Batali do it a couple of times but he didn't explain why.

 

[Darkstream]

Well, I think you are in fact probably right. Cornflour (I am not talking corn meal/polenta, but the white fine powder used in Chinese sauces) is as I understand it made from maize. And maize products do not contain gluten, which is why the are recommended to those who have gluten allergy.

I remember reading somewhere that adding cornflour would help if the flour you were using to make pasta was too soft. I have tried it, and it has worked for me. It seems to add extra starch or something that elasticises the dough.

But at the end of the day, why don't you simply use Canadian durum wheat bread and pasta flour? Canada is NOT that far away from America. If you can get it in Italy (a LOT of "Italian" pasta is made from Canadian wheat), you MUST be able to get it in America.

Or is it a prohibited substance in the US?

 

[Michael in FtW]

Darkstream - the fine white corn powder used in Chinese sauces is usually corn starch, not corn flour.

Believe it or not, we grow durum wheat here in the US, too. The problem is that not every store carries it - I've got 5 stores around me that I shop at for different things and only 2 carry semolina flour. The stuff available to me is from Bob's Red Mill in Oregon - Bob's No. 1 Semolina for Pasta.

 

[Darkstream]

Two great nations divided by a common language.

Go with the corn starch, and insist that your retailers supply you with the products YOU want, not what they want to supply.

 

[Audeo]

Ahhhh, the great advice continues on this thread!

My continuing thanks and best wishes to all!

 

[kitchenelf]

Audeo - I have several of the Frugal Gourmet cookbooks - can't remember exactly which one has the recipe for phyllo dough - it consists of 2 words - "buy it" LOL

 

[Audeo]

Audeo - I have several of the Frugal Gourmet cookbooks - can't remember exactly which one has the recipe for phyllo dough - it consists of 2 words - "buy it" LOL

ROFL, Elf! I can definately attest to the truth of that statement!!!

 

[Michael in FtW]

Audeo, if you have a copy of "Joy of Cooking" there is the recipe and illustrated techniques for making a strudel dough.

Phyllo is about the same - maybe a different recipe for the dough, but the technique is the same. You just have to keep going until it is tissue paper thin.

I'm afraid I don't have the time, patience, or access to a sufficient quantity of the proper medications that would keep me docile for long enough to make phyllo by hand.

Yeah, Elf, The Frug said it somewhere ... unfortunately the way the recipes are indexed it's not easy to find where he said it. Seems it was in the beginning "commentary" on a recipe that used phyllo ... but the indexing is so bad that they are not always singled out unter the topic of phyllo - they end up under some other catagory.

 

[Audeo]

ROFL, Michael!

Making phyllo is doomed to Hades, IMO. However, puff pastry is definately do-able! Such things are therapy for me, and a darned sight cheaper than psychiatry!

Of course, making the stuff, in itself, might be a reason for a psyciatric referral...!

Good to see you, Michael! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

 

[Lifter]

Have spent over an hour rolling through this "education" on why some things turn out and why othes "don't"...seeing as Dougie eats pasta in quantity depending on how the "fresh" ravioli/tortellini wtc I cook up turns out...

I now understand much better the "tiny" issues of some of the problems I've inadvertantly placed in his way...and much better appreciate the advantages of being Canadian, and "living where a whacking great pile of ex-Itallian ex-pats" live...such that "our" flour can do these "extra" things...should I offer to "export" it from the store shelves to you guys? Its simple ecomomics why Canadian Grown flour/wheat is forbidden over the border, much like our lumber, beef and steel....(until its disaster relief. akin to Florida a few years ago!)

Anyways, have much enjoyedthis education abd will be cooking Dougies suppers that much better...he'd "thank" you all, almost as much as I do!

Lifter

 

[subfuscpersona]

This thread finally taught me how to make egg pasta properly. My mistake was measuring flour by volume rather than weight. The dough I make now is much much stiffer than I was used to but a plus is that I find that I don't need to let the pasta dry after rolling it into sheets and prior to cutting it into noodles. I can roll and cut in one work flow. Even angel hair pasta cuts and seperates cleanly. (I'm using a pasta machine).

I am also making a large batch and freezing the dough that I don't use right away. I roll it into balls (about 6oz pieces work well for us) and wrap very well in plastic wrap, then put in a labeled plastic bag. I realize that freezing dough is possibly a culinary no-no for some of you, since sometimes the outside of the dough can darken slightly, but frankly, once the dough is rolled, cut, cooked and sauced, no one knows the difference.

 

[Darkstream]

Thats very interesting. I would like to know how well the dough survives ther freezing process. Presumably it is made with whole egg and white flour?

I have been thinking of experimenting with frozen ravioli for some time, but have not got around to it. Diet comes first.

 

[subfuscpersona]

Thats very interesting. I would like to know how well the dough survives ther freezing process. Presumably it is made with whole egg and white flour?

I have been thinking of experimenting with frozen ravioli for some time, but have not got around to it. Diet comes first.

The dough seems to freeze and defrost just fine and the cooked result is like fresh. As I said in my prior post, it is frozen in a balls (6oz balls - about the size of a racket ball?) and each ball is double or triple wrapped in plastic wrap to make sure there is no moisture loss, then all the pasta balls are put in a plastic bag labeled with the date the pasta was made. (I figured balls would expose the least surface area.)

The day before I want to make pasta, I just put what I want in the frig and let it defrost there. I normally go though a batch of frozen pasta in 4-6 wks. As I mentioned in my prior post, sometimes there's a slight graying of the outside of a pasta ball but I think that's if the storage is longer or maybe the one ball where I saw it happen wasn't wrapped that well. It doesn't mean the pasta is bad and it pretty much disappears into the dough when its rolled out.

I have frozen ravioli also tho I haven't made it recently. You lay them flat in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the frig. As soon as they're frozen solid, you can dump them in ziplock bags and get that darn cookie sheet out of the freezer. To cook, just dump them, frozen, into your simmering water.

I want to thank you again for all your good advice in this thread. It used to take so much longer to make pasta and I had trouble sometimes with the noodles sticking to eachother when cut and all because my dough was too wet! - Oh, yes, the dough is simply eggs and flour (I usually use bread flour but I do think AP would be fine too) using your proportions and then well kneaded for about 10 min. (I personally add no salt or oil to the pasta dough.)

Sometimes I think an ample freezer is a cook's best friend. :? (I sure wish mine was larger!)

 

[subfuscpersona]

Opps - mistake in my post and it won't let me go back and edit - re freezing ravioli I said

You lay them flat in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the frig.

Of course, "frig" should have been "freezer". My bad, sorry.

 

[Audeo]

subfusc, I can attest to your freezing method!

I made a huge batch of ravioli last Sunday and laid the raviolis on waxed paper on a cookie sheet and froze them for a couple of hours, then dumped them unceremoniously into a large heavy-duty ziploc and stored them in the freezer. On Wednesday night after getting home, I removed a dinner-sized amount of the raviolis from the ziploc and placed those on waxed paper-lined cookie sheets and allowed them to thaw in the refrigerator. Thursday evening, I cooked them and they were the same texture as if they had been made immediately before cooking...but saved me a good hour's time in preparing dinner that evening.

As something of a test, I have taken the balance of the raviolis now, in their same ziploc, and wrapped it well with freezer paper and placed into the deep freeze. I'm going to leave them there for a couple of weeks and see if that length of time frozen makes a negative impact on the taste and texture. Time will tell...

I've also frozed balls of dough, but prefer to go ahead and cut the noodles or make raviolis before freezing. Just a personal preferance to save more time getting to the dinner table during hectic days.