Making Pasta

[Andy M.]

I have a pasta machine. It's an inexpensive hand cranked model and does a pretty good job for sheets of pasta and fettuccine.

I've made mostly fettuccine. I made sheets for lasagna once and decided it's not worth the effort. The qualities of fresh pasta get lost in the layering with the sauce, cheese and noodles.

I do have a question. No where do I find info on how thick/thin I should be rolling pasta for different shapes. I have a thickness dial with thicknesses up to 7.

For fettuccine, I roll it fairly thin as it swells when it's cooked. What I don't know is how thick it should be for ravioli or lasagna or other shapes.

Any thoughts?

 

[Recipes Make Magic]

I have the same machine as you Andy, and use it fairly often.


I find it does a super job making very thin sheets of pasta - to be cut into circles, filled, & shaped to make ravioli, and particularly, tortellini, with many different types of tasty fillings & different sauces to finish with.


Can't remember for sure, but I think we move the machine down to a low of 2 or 3, from 7 thickness.
Lasagna should be a little thicker cut - 4 or so ?


Isn't 1 paper thin ? Hope I'm not off on these numbers.

 

[Andy M.]

...Isn't 1 paper thin ? Hope I'm not off on these numbers.

"1" is indeed paper thin. I'd be concerned pasta that thin wouldn't hold up to the stuffing.

 

[pepperhead212]

My pasta maker is reversed, with 7 being the thinnest. I always roll the fettuccine to 6, and the dough for jaotze to 5, but I roll it through twice, as the second time makes it a little thinner.

 

[msmofet]

I like to use a thicker setting for ravioli. I found thin ravioli dough/pasta sheets tends to leak. I have even rolled it by hand to avoid leaking ravioli.

 

[tenspeed]

I have a KA brand pasta roller for my KA mixer. It's made in Italy, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's made by one of the major pasta machine manufacturers. It has a range of 1 (thickest) through 8, and I've found that 6 works well for ravioli.

I've tried a ravioli mold and a ravioli stamp, but I've found that the quickest and easiest way is to put dollops of filling along one side of the sheet, paint the spaces between the dollops and the ends with water, then fold the pasta sheet over the filling. Work out the air, then cut the individual raviolis with a Kuchenprofi ravioli cutter (from Amazon). You end up with raviolis that are crimped on three sides, with one side a fold. I suppose you could crimp the fold for uniform appearance, but I'm not concerned with somewhat irregular size and shape ravioli. When I used the mold there were some that didn't want to release from the mold, and I ended up tearing some trying to get them out of the mold. Dusting the mold with flour helped, but not 100% of the time. Folding eliminated the issue, and there is also practically no waste of pasta.

I use a shaker to dust the pasta with flour when rolling. It's one of those glass shakers you see at the pizza restaurants that hold red pepper flakes. I picked it up at the local kitchen store. Amazon sells a Marcato Atlas flour duster for $35, but I only paid a few bucks for mine.

I've made the same thickness sheets for lasagna. I really like the texture of the fresh pasta as compared to the dried sheets. It also eliminates the need to boil the dried sheets.

 

[skilletlicker]

Abandoned my KitchenAid pasta attachments with the rest of the kitchen 15 years ago. I don't have any informed opinions on thickness but may I tack on a couple of questions related to "Making Pasta"?

1. Manual machine recommendations? Which machine is it that Andy and RMM have in common? I put a Marcato 8320 Atlas Pasta Machine on my Amazon wish list last year ago when I last considered this but don't really know how it stacks up against the competition.
2. Flour recommendations? More or less committed to whole, or at least wholer, grains. Exactly what that means in relation to pasta in general and 00, semolina, and durum wheat flours, in particular, has never been clear though.

 

[bbqcoder]

I have a KA brand pasta roller for my KA mixer. It's made in Italy, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's made by one of the major pasta machine manufacturers.

Hmm, I never thought to check if mine was made in Italy. I have the same pasta roller set for my KA. Only used the roller and never the cutters. Have made lasagna noodles a bunch of times.

 

[Andy M.]

...

1. Manual machine recommendations? Which machine is it that Andy and RMM have in common? I put a Marcato 8320 Atlas Pasta Machine on my Amazon wish list last year ago when I last considered this but don't really know how it stacks up against the competition.
2. Flour recommendations? More or less committed to whole, or at least wholer, grains. Exactly what that means in relation to pasta in general and 00, semolina, and durum wheat flours, in particular, has never been clear though.

1. My machine is an Imperial (not Imperia). I don't use it a lot but when I do, it's fine. It has two sets of cutters. A fettuccine size and another for a much narrower noodle. Sort of spaghetti-sized. The narrower cutter doesn't work well. It makes cuts but they don't cut through all the way.

2. I use AP flour. No issues. 150 grams of flour, one large egg, a dash of salt and ½ Tb olive oil.

 

[taxlady]

I only use wholegrain flour when I make pasta. I find that it won't go quite as thin as white flour pasta, but only by about one number. It's great for lasagne and fettuccine. It worked fine for ravioli, the one time I used it for ravioli. I really like that most of the kneading is done by repeatedly rolling the dough, at one of the thicker settings.

 

[tenspeed]

Here ya go...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1CAL9AlD6M

 

[msmofet]

I have an Atlas manual pasta machine.

 

[Andy M.]

Interesting that the video commentary suggested the thinnest pasta sheets for ravioli and other stuffed pastas.

 

[Recipes Make Magic]

Interesting that the video commentary suggested the thinnest pasta sheets for ravioli and other stuffed pastas.

Last time I made Tortellini on my machine (which I believe is same as yours Andy), I used # 2 setting because I thought #1 was too thin and might easily tear when cooking.
No. 2 turned out just fine.

 

[tenspeed]

Interesting that the video commentary suggested the thinnest pasta sheets for ravioli and other stuffed pastas.

You want thinner sheets for ravioli than fettuccine, linguine, etc.

 

[CWS4322]

I have a pasta maker (hand). I generally roll mine by hand. I cut the linquini by hand. It is so much faster than dragging the machine out, setting it up. When I use my pasta maker, I start on the thickest setting and pass the pasta through 3-4 times. Almost made pasta this week, but opted to use dry. Now that fall is coming, might drag the pasta machine out more often. I try to limit the Elders to pasta about 2x/month. Dad is pre-diabetic and a carb and sugar addict.

 

[taxlady]

So, my machine is the one recommended in that video. It won't cut my pasta into nice spaghetti, but does okay with fettuccine.

 

[skilletlicker]

So, my machine is the one recommended in that video. It won't cut my pasta into nice spaghetti, but does okay with fettuccine.

This machine, right?

Are you saying you have the Atlas Spaghetti Attachment but it doesn't work very well, or are you saying that it won't cut spaghetti unless you have the attachment?

 

[CWS4322]

Same one I have, when I drag it upstairs.

 

[taxlady]

This machine, right?
View attachment 36473
Are you saying you have the Atlas Spaghetti Attachment but it doesn't work very well, or are you saying that it won't cut spaghetti unless you have the attachment?
View attachment 36472

That looks a lot like my machine, but I'll have to check that badge to be sure.

I'm saying that it cuts wider strands of pasta well, but doesn't cut the thin strands well. That is while use the cutter that comes with the machine and looks like the one on the machine in the picture. I don't have a special spaghetti cutter.