Fresh Homemade Pasta (pasta fatta in casa)
Posted on May 7, 2009 05:41:48 AM
Making fresh homemade pasta is not difficult, sure it’s time consuming, but it pays off in the end.
First of all, you’ll need a pasta machine. This from Amazon.co.uk is the pasta machine I have, and it does a decent job. This one from Amazon.com is basically the same.
For the pasta dough. The basic ingredients are: flour, salt, eggs. The proportions are typically: 100g (4/5 cup) flour x 1 egg. This is not a strict rule, actually I wanted to make it more eggy and yellow, so I added a yolk or two.
In the end I used 500g flour ( 1/5 cups), 5 eggs, 3 yolks and a pinch of salt.
Which flour? Some cookbooks get around this problem in a smart way: “pasta flour” they say, or 00 flour (finely grounded wheat flour), which is what you would use in Italy. As 00 flour is not sold in the supermarket, if you don’t want to be ripped off by one of those Italian food delis, I would stick to either strong flour or all-purpose flour.
Now, for experiment’s sake, I made two doughs, one for each kind of flour, and even though the strong flour was a bit harder to work, the results were very good in both cases.
The homemade pasta dough. Sift the flour in a bowl, add the salt and make a well in the middle. Break the eggs straight into it and beat them with a fork. Start circling around (using fingers or fork) and bring in the flour. When you have a kneadable pasta dough, transfer it to the working surface and work it for 10-15 minutes, add some more flour if it’s too wet, or sprinkle it with water if too dry. When it’s elastic and smooth dust it with flour and cover it with clingfilm. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
The preparation. In the meantime, take all the paraphernalia for the staging area. Use a large surface (read table), cover it with a tablecloth and dust it all over with flour. Fix the pasta machine, and leave the flour packet and a knife at hand.
Roll it. Take third of the pasta dough and flatten it as much as you can with your hands. Stick it between the rolls of the pasta machine and start rolling it from less thin to thinner. Pass the dough 4-5 times before changing the settings. This is where you need an extra pair of hands to hold the dough. If you’re planning to make lasagne, make it as thin as possible, a little less if you’re making tagliatelle.
Let it dry. When the strips of pasta have the desired thickness (like the ones in the picture), if you’re making lasagne your job is over, you can let it dry. If you’re making tagliatelle though, don’t go back to the pasta machine yet, let it dry a little bit, let’s say 15 minutes, otherwise it will be all sticky long before hitting the boiling water. When you have your tagliatelle, stretch them out carefully and let them dry completely. If you’re not using all the pasta you can freeze it.
More pasta recipes and homemade pasta recipes.
Pasta recipes for beginners (or how to cook pasta properly)
Posted on Apr 14, 2009 05:08:12 PM
Before publishing more pasta recipes, few, well known rules about how to cook pasta properly won’t do any harm. Before starting, consider that different types of pasta will cook in different ways. Ribbed pasta (like rigatoni) will attract the dressing better, but a non-ribbed pasta on the other hand will cook more evenly.
Pasta goes into boiling water, everybody knows that. But not many know that pasta likes space so there has to be plenty of water. Every 100g of pasta require one liter of water. 300g means 3 liters.
What about salt? There’s a rule or two for that too. Salt has to be added after water has reached boiling temperature, or boiling will be delayed. If you have one liter of water add 10g of salt, for 2 liters add 20g and so on.
A general opinion about cooking pasta is that you have to add oil to the water in order to keep the noodles separated. This is useless, and a waste too. Use good quality pasta in enough water and it won’t stick.
Wait for 30 seconds for the salt to dissolve and pour the pasta. If you’re using spaghetti, use your hands to push them down instead of breaking them. Make sure you don’t touch the boiling water.
When you add the pasta, the water will stop boiling, so try to make it boil back as quick as possible by turning up the flame and covering the pan. When it’s boiling again, turn down the heat a little bit and uncover the pan. In general, the level of heat should be the highest you can get without making the water boil out of the pan.
With a wooden spoon move the pasta every now and then, this is a great substitute for oil in order not to make it stick. If you’re not sure for how long to cook it, follow the instructions on the packet, which should be for pasta al dente (dente = tooth). It means not so hard to be raw but not so cooked that it won’t fall to the floor if you throw it at the wall.
Al dente is how pasta should be in the end. Don’t overdo, for at least three reasons: pasta won’t stop cooking until it’s cold, and long before you’ve finished eating it, it will be like chewing gum; if it’s too cooked your stomach will take longer to process it. And finally: this is the way the do it in Italy. Once you become an al dente expert, you can taste it to know when it’s time to drain it, using the packet as general guide.
When it’s time, have the colander ready in the sink, and drain the pasta. Get rid of all the water (in some cases you might still need a little bit of it). Add the pasta to the sauce, if it’s in another pan, and let it go for 2-3 minutes, until everything is well mixed.
Pasta should be eaten immediately, but if you’re going to eat it at work the next day, or if you’re preparing a cold pasta salad, put it under cold water after draining it. This will stop the cooking.