Your Pasta Proportions

[Russell]

My grandma gave me her pasta machine that was her great aunts. I used to use one egg to 1 cup flour, but my great great great (?) aunts recipe.75 cups flour with one egg

 

[subfuscpersona]

Pasta proportions

Classic proportions for egg noodles are 1 large egg per 1/2 cup flour - no salt, no oil. (This is what I use but then some additional flour is incorporated during kneading)

Sounds old so is it a manual one? I have a marcato hand cranked pasta machine. I makes spaghetti or fettuccine. I also have the angel-hair cutting attachment and a ravioli attachment.

For fettuccine I use all-purpose unbleached white but for spaghetti or angel hair I use white bread flour since it seems to cut better (the strands don't stick together).

This site has instructions - scroll to the bottom for hand cranked machines
Making Homemade Pasta

 

[Russell]

yeah its a hand crank, and it works quite well. It can make fettuccini (sp) and linguini and ravioli and lasagna noodles and stuff like that. The first time i made pasta, a hand rolled it and hand cut it. it was hard

 

[subfuscpersona]

hi miguzigoldfish

does it have a ravioli attachment like the one in this picture?
If yes, do you use it? I always had trouble with mine and kinda gave up on it. If you use it successfully, please give me some hints. TIA

 

[Russell]

Its like, you take the pasta sheet putmeat every inch and a half fold it over, then place it through, and depending on if you have the meat (or cheese) placed correctly they will come out perfect.

 

[cookienut]

Those ravioli makes are really kind of messy. I use my Kitchen Aid to make the sheets. I use ravioli molds. They are much easier and cleaner to use. You just put a sheet of dough on the tray, then take the top mold and just tap in top of the dough gently to make the shape, then take it off and fill the holes. Once you fill the holes with filling you lay the second sheet on top and roll your rolling pin over the edges and remove the raviolis. These are great. I ended up throwing away the ravioli maker that you put the sheets in and then the filling. I really do think they are very messy, especially if you make a mistake or put a little too much filling in.

 

[subfuscpersona]

ravioli attachment for hand pasta machine

re using a ravioli attachment for hand pasta machine

Thanks to cookienut who wrote

Those ravioli makes are really kind of messy... I ended up throwing away the ravioli maker that you put the sheets in and then the filling. I really do think they are very messy, especially if you make a mistake or put a little too much filling in

You made me feel a lot better. At least now I know its not just my ineptitude.

I had the same experience. It just takes too much coddling to get it to work properly. I'll try a ravioli mold and use the machine to make the sheets.

 

[Michael in FtW]

A couple of years ago I set out on a quest to find "THE" definative classic/authentic recipe for pasta. What I discovered was that there is no such thing as such! It depends on the region, the village, the street, and the grandma that was making it - and what she was making it for since she might use a basic recipe for noodles but add an extra egg yolk for lasagna or ravioli, or maybe add a little oil, or replace the eggs with water, or if she didn't have enough eggs she might add a little water, etc. I think I narrowed it down to about 27 authentic/classic basic recipes. ARRGH!!!

As for the ravioli attachment subfuscpersona mentioned for the hand-cranker you have .... I have read some war stories about it. It's a matter of learning how to use it - you'll just have to experiment with it and figure out it's quirks. As for me - I just make them by hand ... not as neat and pretty but they work.