csw@ulysses.UUCP (Chris Warth) (03/19/85)
This note is in praise of homemade pasta. Most of this is to
encourage those who have not tried fresh pasta to do so. I also have
some questions for experienced pasta cooks at the end.
Ever since I had fettuccine made with fresh pasta, I have been
convinced there is a world of difference between fresh and store
bought, i.e. hard, pasta. I do not claim to know the technical
reasons why homemade is better; I do know which I prefer. Fresh
pasta is moist and flexible. Depending upon the thickness, it cooks
in about one quarter the time of dried pasta. I suspect that the main
difference between homemade pasta and the kind bought in stores is
that homemade is usually thinner. Homemade is not often dried out like
that in stores but I am not sure if this makes a difference. Since pasta
is so simple to make, I do not doubt that the ingredients in homemade
are largely identical to those in manufactured pasta.
Making your own pasta takes a minimum investment in both time and
money. You can buy a very good pasta rolling machine for only $20.
Do not get the $60 extrusion machines; I have heard that is how to
make really *bad* pasta. The machine I have consists of just a hand
crank and three sets of metal rollers. One is for rolling the dough
very thin and the other two cut it into either fettuccine noodles or
spaghetti. Some cookbooks, notably, "Beard on Pasta", say that you
can roll the pasta very thin with just a hand roller and then cut it
with a knife. I tried this a couple of times and got very sore arms
for my trouble. It may have been the particular dough I was using but
I never got the dough anywhere near as thin as I wanted. The machine
makes it infinitely easier.
Most recipes for pasta take very little time or ingredients; the
basic recipe consists of flour and eggs, that's all. You will spend
most of your time waiting the hour or so necessary to let the dough
rest. Since this phase of the recipe can usually be stretched, I
make my dough in the morning and let it rest all day in the fridge.
That way it is ready to roll out and cook when I get home.
I should note that there is a wide variation in the amounts of
ingredients recommended by various cooks. James Beard recommends a
very tough and relatively dry dough. On the other hand, "Joy of
Cooking" (most recent edition) uses a much moister blend. Beard also
notes that the texture of pasta can be significantly affected by
humidity. I prefer the moister dough simply because it is much easier
to roll.
The most important point in favor of making your own pasta is that
you have exact control over how it comes out. I have found that I
like extremely thin pasta. Since, I have never found the type of
noodles I like in stores, homemade is my only option. More important,
homemade pasta is fun to make.
I would like to start making some of the more ambitious stuffed
pastas. Anyone out there with experience in this area? Is there an
easy way to make pasta shells at home? I would also like to know how
the quality of ingredients, i.e. fresh vs. refrigerated eggs, white
vs. duram flour, impacts the quality of the pasta. Does the fact
that homemade pasta usually remains moist until cooked really make any
difference in the final product?
I have heard it said that you can never really learn to make good
pasta unless you started at your mother's side as a child. I truly
hope this is wrong. So far things have turned out pretty tasty.
Thanks in advance.
- Chris Warth
ATT Bell Labs
Murray Hill, NJ
ulysses!csw