Do you make your own pasta?

[crazycanuck]

I came accross an article in a local foodie mag regarding making your own pasta by hand & will try it soon. I have to say I'm enjoying cooking for once and Ian loves it!

What i'm wondering is if anyone else makes thier own pasta & how well does it turn out?

If you'd like the recipe & the steps, i'll post them.

[shootingstar]

Well, no. Would be impressed if anyone here did!


But I make our focaccia from scratch-- sometimes.

[crazycanuck]

I wonder if Mimi does???

I also make pizza from scratch but my dough ends up a bit too sticky. What would i be doing wrong?

[smilingcat]

I don't do it often. but here it is.

One large egg.
4 oz (100gram) of flour (1/2 All purpose 1/2 duram wheat/semolina). Semolina in US tends to be ground very coarse this is why I mix it 1/2 and 1/2
1 tablespoon of ice cold water
some people will add pinch of salt (I skip)

How ever you wish to mix.

I use a fork and scramble the egg really well in a bowl.
add the flour mixture and mix with a fork. when the egg is more or less mixed or the dough is too stiff, use hand to mix. When it becomes too dry add little bit of water and continue to knead. Add enough water to make the dough come together. Pasta dough is very very stiff but still pliable without cracking.

Once the dough comes completely together, continue kneading the dough by rolling the dough on a board with the base of your hand. Takes at least five minutes of hard kneading. You should not need any flour to keep the dough from sticking.

wrap the dough in plastic in leave it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or more. I usually leave it alone for about an hour.

The dough shoud have rested. use a pasta roller and follow its instruction. Here yo do want AP flour so that the rolled out pasta does not stick together. als have a baking sheet ready to lay the pasta down flat. Keep it coverd with a saran wrap or else the pasta will dry out around the edges. note: have several baking sheets.

bring a pot water to boil, lightly salt the water. Pasta will cook in about 2-3minutes.

I use #7 setting on my pasta roller to make noodles for chicken soup.
#4 for ravioli or tortolini

It really isn't time consuming. Its easy just need elbow grease. And it taste so much better than the stuff out of a box. You can add herbs, spinach, cooked carrots... Make some one of a kind pasta.

have fun.:)

[smilingcat]

pizza crust sticky?

Use a baking brick/stone "sheet" underneath your pizza for that stone hearth baking feel. The baking brick wicks the moisture away from the pizza and makes the crust drier.

My sister bought me a special pizza baking dish. Big round thing with 1" lip all the way around. The bottom of the pan had hundreds of 1/8" diameter hole to allow for the moisture to escape from the pizza. This will keep the crust from becoming sticky.

I think your recipe is probably fine.

I get carried away with Sicillian style. bell peppers, roasted chicken, mushroom, onion, ... yummo

[papaver]

I sometimes do, and i just use the Jamie Oliver recipe.

[crazycanuck]

Thanks for the info Scat.. The recipe I found calls for 4 large eggs, 2 tsp salt & 400g of "00" flour..."00"flour because apparently it's the flour of choice by many of the Perth authentic Italian pasta makers.

Interesting!

[tulip]

Handmade pasta is one of my projects now that I have a kitchen. I don't have a pasta maker, though. But I'll try rolling and cutting.

If your pizza dough is sticky, try kneading it with a bit more flour. Not too much at a time. I make homemade pizza often, and it's quite easy once you get the hang of it. I don't even use a recipe anymore, but I have to remember not to forget the salt, or else it tastes really bland.

[Crankin]

I had one experience making home made pasta. It involved getting flour all over my kitchen, spilling oil on my new pants, and a large amount of wine.
I have a picture of me holding a screaming 8 month old, in the middle of this process.
The pasta maker attachment went into storage directly after that and then got thrown out in our cross country move. Now I get my home made pasta in restaurants!

[Biciclista]

Mimi does but not very often. My grandmother used to do it, and i have cousins who do every week. I don't have time!

[Blueberry]

I do make it, but not often. I've never had any real problems - and the result is totally worth it - I just don't eat pasta often:)

[OakLeaf]

Occasionally. We actually eat a lot of storebought dried pasta, so we think of pasta as the sort of meal we throw together at the last minute when we don't have a lot of energy or too many ingredients. So homemade pasta doesn't happen very often, but like CA, no real problems.

I have the pasta maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I use the PTO way more often than I actually use it as a mixer.

[skinimini]

I don't normally make fresh pasta, unless I have a hankering for some really fresh ravioli, specifically [I]malfatti,[I] which is kind of a free-form ravioli. Yumm! I can get really good fresh pasta at the local market. Last week, I was in NYC for a business trip, and I bought some really fancy dried lasagna noodles from Dean and Deluca. The wild mushroom lasagna I made earlier this week was some of the best I've ever made. My husband didn't even fuss about it being vegetarian. Even great reheated.

I always make fresh pizza dough--usually a couple of times per month.

[ny biker]

I don't make fresh pasta (I'm a terrible cook, so boiling the stuff I get at the store is enough challenge for me!). But years ago I had friends who had a pasta machine and they made pasta often. Once for a Halloween dinner party they made really thin spaghetti with squid ink to make it black.

If I was going to attempt to make pasta, I would probably start with something recommended by Alton Brown.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ravioli-recipe/index.html

[Kimmyt]

I made some awesome gnocchi not too long ago. It was surprisingly easy and it turned out well, I would recommend it for people who want to make their own pasta but are afraid to make something too labor intensive.

[malkin]

I did it several times a week for about a year when I was nouveau pauvre, not quite divorced (no income) with a two year old. She and I had great fun and something to eat afterwards. We used a hand crank machine.

I used all the variations from Abby Mandell's Cuisinart cookbook. The kid's favorite was the spinach one, because she liked cranking the spinach in the salad spinner and because the pasta comes out a beautiful green.

[smilingcat]

Oooo gnocchi! plain or something in it?

Did you make a white sauce or red sauce or something else? For a pot luck at my office, my boss, who is of Itallian descent, requested I make him a white sauce. I made a simple mornay sauce. He liked it.

yummo!

[Kimmyt]

I made plain gnocchi, doubled the batch and froze alot of it so I could have it for multiple meals. I just made different sauces to go with it, once a red win ragu and another time a browned butter spinach sauce.

I have a recipe for sweet potato gnocchi that I'm dying to try...

[smilingcat]

I have a recipe for sweet potato gnocchi that I'm dying to try...

Light bulb just glowed in my head. I do have a half of a sweet potato all cooked up. Was thinking of mashing and baking it again with honey, butter cinnamon, powdered clove, powdered ginger but sweet potato gnocchi sounds delish. Make some ghee add some whole sage leaves and coat gnocchi.

Thanks! I'll try this tonight.

[skinimini]

That sounds wonderful! Let us know how it turns out and please pass on the recipe. Love gnocchi and love sweet potatoes. I have a butternut squash in the fridge. . . hmm, I wonder how that would work?

[indigoiis]

want recipe!

[crazycanuck]

I just made some fresh pasta & will cook it tonight for dinner. Now all I need is to make the sauce :)

If i want to store the rest of the dough in my fridge until Monday(combined lunch w friends..), is it ok if i leave it in a ziplock bag?

[crazycanuck]

Smilingcat...do you have a cool white sauce recipe?

A swiss friend is visiting Aust & we're having him over for dinner this week. We'll be doing our homemade pasta but i'm on the white sauce..

Help?

[Reesha]

Carbonara can be a really lightweight white sauce, but you kind of prepare it with the pasta, not separately.

I put a recipe for Smoked Salmon carbonara in the TE cookbook that's linked in my signature if you're curious. It's a great, easy and delicious recipe.

[Crankin]

I made pasta once, 25 years ago. My whole kitchen was covered with flour and much wine was consumed. I remember ruining a new pair of nice chino pants with olive oil, too.
Let's just say the pasta maker attachment was put away after that.

[crazycanuck]

Reesha-yes please~:)

[belly342]

Hi, new here. I had to comment on the pasta.
I've made Angel hair, fettachini, and homemade ravioli.
It is soooo good, however, time consuming and a bit frustrating if you don't have the time.

And this is with the pasta attachment to the Kitchen Aid mixer. (hub was good enough to purchase the two attachments needed. cost $180 (this does not include the mixer)

The noodles have a tendancy to stick together, so you need room to dry them and flour them to avoid the clumping.
I usually do this in the winter, or on rainy days or as afamily activity.

[Reesha]

here you go CC!

Ingredients
4 oz / 110 g smoked salmon, sliced into either bite size pieces or fettuccine-like strips
1 lb / 500 g Farfalle pasta (bowties!)
1/4 / 240 mL cup light cream
1 large egg
1 cup (or a large handful) of finely chopped fresh parsley
3-4 oz / ~100 g pecorino romano or parmesan cheese, finely grated
salt and pepper to taste

Bring enough water to cook the pasta to a boil on the stove. In the meantime, whisk together the egg, the cream and about half the grated cheese in a large serving bowl. When the pasta is al dente, or however you like it cooked, drain it and then quickly toss the pasta in the serving bowl with the egg mixture. The piping hot pasta will cook the egg gently and the sauce will thicken just enough to lightly coat each bowtie. Add fresh ground pepper and a dash of salt to taste, toss in your chopped parsley and lastly, add the smoked salmon. Serve with the remaining cheese to approximately 3-4 people (depending on how hearty your appetites are!)

[smilingcat]

Smilingcat...do you have a cool white sauce recipe?

A swiss friend is visiting Aust & we're having him over for dinner this week. We'll be doing our homemade pasta but i'm on the white sauce..

Help?

I like Reesha's recipe. Mine tends to be more classic so its heavy. Classic Bechamel sauce as the base.

------
I also like herbed sauce. French Tarragon cream sauce comes to mind.

Add about a tablespoon of finely chopped French tarragon to about a cup of cream sauce and gently cook. Do not substitute other kinds of tarragon. Fresh one is better.

Grill some low fat fish halibut/cod or chicken breast. Slice the fish/chicken and toss with farafalle and the tarragon cream sauce. Carbonera sauce will work very well.

keep it simple and try it first (days) before your guests arrive.