Handmade Pasta

first time making by hand. After watching videos and getting some flour—Central Milling 00–I made it. Pain and not likely worth it. As I rolled it out and sweated, I kept thinking “Trader Joe’s, 99 cents a pound.” It was tasty but not amazing. Tagliatelle—not angel hair—cut by hand.

Homemade pasta is easy to make, but hard to make well. I leave it to the pros at my local Italian restaurant.

Congrats on the success! It is certainly an art.

I always love the idea of it more than the result. I really like the al dente textures from dried pasta, and that’s hard to get from fresh pasta. But I will admit the best ones I’ve had add something to the dish that goes beyond that. They can be heaven. I think, which was alluded to in thread, unless it’s really well made I can take it or leave it.

the master, worth watching just to admire:

So much easier and imo so much better with a pasta attachment for the Kitchen Aid. My wife makes pasta almost every Sunday and it is a delight.

1 egg per person to ≈2/3c of flour (50/50 semolina and all purpose), a bit of olive oil and salt. Let it rest in a baggie in the fridge. We use an Atlas with a motor attachment, nothing could be easier. A lot better than almost all dried pasta.

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking the first time I made the dough from scratch. That is, until I cooked and ate it. Totally worth the effort, imo, and I quickly got more efficient at it, too. FWIW, my opinion is likely colored by the fact that I have the Kitchen Aid attachment, which I figure makes that part of the process a whole lot easier than doing it by hand.

Just made some using an atlas cranker. First time in many many years - pretty easy and tasty. Different texture than dried pasta for sure but great kou gan.

nice. I did it by weight—140 gm flour, 2 yolks and another egg, made a double batch so I doubled that. No olive oil or salt. I’m sure there are a lot of variations. A machine sounds great. Wife would kill me if another kitchen toy showed up, though.

That would seem to rule out buying a kitchen machete. Or, maybe not, if usable at least once.

We make it a lot. A few keys -

First, use more flour than something like a bread dough. It should be a pretty tough dough initially - don’t worry, after you let it sit for a while it gets much easier to handle.

Second - don’t make it and try to roll it out right away. I make it in the morning and let it sit on the counter all day. It takes a LONG time for an egg to be absorbed by flour. This is the same with cookie dough - always let it sit for at least a day, if not more, before making your cookies.

Third - use an extra yolk. Gives it a more “eggy” taste. A lot of times jumbo eggs have double yolks - those are good eggs.

Fourth - put salt in it. I’m always amazed at stupid recipes that say to put the pasta in salted water. Why? If you want some salt, put it in the pasta, not the water. And to those who claim salt will affect the gluten development, it won’t.

Fifth - why use tipo 00 flour? Because every American wants to make something “authentically” Italian? But how authentic is it. Sixty years? Just use a good high-protein flour.

Sixth - no need for oil. That goes on the outside, not the inside.

Seventh - you can add flavors and ingredients, but the best is to use the food processor to blend them with the flour. And be careful, some things have a lot of liquid so you’ll need more flour. For example, a little parsley goes a long way and doesn’t add a lot of moisture, but spinach does. However, by the time you cook it, the flavor of spinach is more or less a memory, so use the stronger-flavored parsley to make green pasta.

I just use the pasta machine that I got back in the 1970s. Exactly what they’re still selling today. And it’s good for ramen noodles too.

Other times I just cut the noodles by hand.

Cool how you are exploring new “culinary” adventures. Tempting to try some of these, but not quite to the point of overcoming my inertia. Until then I will enjoy vicariously. Thanks for posting and keep 'em coming.

Wow! I’ve seen him on other videos, but this is next-level meticulous. The wrapping of the dough alone just blows my mind.

I’m almost ashamed to say I throw it all together (sometimes in my food processor) and put it through my KitchenAid rollers.

Great advice.

I love doing pastas where egg yolk is the only liquid. Super rich but fun

Also I like to add 3% salt by flour weight. I do recall reading that some salt in the pasta dough does assist in gluten development…

I would slightly disagree with Greg on the flour, we use 00 flour as I think it gives a better consistency and leads to a silkier dough which is especially nice for stuffed pastas. That being said, it is not critical.

Also, if you can find Jidori eggs, they give a particularly nice color to the pasta (if you have never seen a Jidori yolk, you’ll understand when you see it, it’s like a setting sun). We get our Jidori eggs at a local Japanese market. We use a ton of yolks with a little olive oil and milk.

We use eggs from my nephew’s hobby farm. They (both chickens and humans) eat well. The color is richer than most store bought eggs and the yolks are bigger, but I’d guess that the 50% semolina had more to do with the deep golden color of that pasta. The semolina will also give you a more al dente feeling. I purposely made those noodles extra thick, too.

The idea that “Oil only belongs on the outside” is similar to a lot of Italian “Nonna rules” that vary from region to region or even family to family. The fact is that a little oil makes your pasta more supple and easier to roll out without adding moisture.

Evan Funke at work. He is meticulous. His pasta prep kitchen is in a fishbowl at Felix. #F*CKYOURPASTAMACHINE