making HM pasta

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Hi Zziggi,

There are a couple of links that may help here, here and here.

I have never attempted to make my own pasta, but anyone I know who does uses a pasta machine. After watching Jamie Oliver I'm thinking of investing in one......I thought this one from argos looked good for the price.

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nabowla

Guys, this is supposed to be an OS website. So how come your posts keep on persuading me that I really do need all sorts of kitchen gadgets that I had never previously thought of buying? I've already rushed out and bought a slow cooker and started pricing up secondhand Kenwood Chefs on Ebay. Now I'm quite convinced that my kitchen really won't be properly stocked until I've bought a nice shiny pasta maker like the one in the photos. Honestly!!!! I hold you all entirely responsible for the fact that I have no cupboard space left in the kitchen. This board should come with a health warning..............:rolleyes:

Lucie_2

I've come around to the opinion that life is too short to make pasta. It's dirt cheap anyway, doesn't contain any nasty chemicals (like bread) so I'm not going to avoid those & it really is a lot of effort to make it. I know it's nice to have a completely HM meal, but for me it's one step too far. Maybe I would think differently if I didn't work full time............

bugs

A pasta machine is very handy and does make life easier, and you should be able to get a perfectly serviceable one for under £10 (I think Lidl has them or will have them soon for about £8).

HOWEVER you don't need one to make pasta so you can get in to the kitchen and have a go now if you want to. Just follow any dough recipe (naturally I recommend the one on Downsizer ) then get out your rolling pin.

You'll need to divide the dough in to many smaller pieces - I generally use an 8 oz flour/2 egg mix, which serves four, and divide it in to quarters to start with, then divide those in to halves again. Just keep rolling until you get to an appropriate thickness. Which is generally thinner than you'd think. Move from ball to ball as you roll, which seems to give the dough a chance to rest and make it easier to process to the right thickness.

From the resulting sheets, you can easily make lasagne of course, and also filled shapes like ravioli - use a pastry cutter, don't overfill, and fold the shapes in half or make giant ones. If you get the ravioli wrong, twist the ends together and call them tortellini .

A little bit more complicated is tagliatelle...make a flat sheet of pasta, roll up like a Swiss roll, and cut slices. You'll need to make sure the roll is well floured to stop it sticking, personally I can never get this right to satisfy my impatience but I know a lot of people can. If I want to have plain home made pasta with a sauce I cut it in to roughly 2 inch by 1 inch strips and claim it is papardelle.

Never tried any fancy shapes but the oriechette look cute - when I've bought them though they take a while to cook, because they're rather thick - so I should be good at making them I suppose :rotfl:

With apologies to any Italians for my excruciating spelling of various pastas

hope this helps
Bugs, who does own a pasta machine but whose partner has "lost" it

bugs

Lucie wrote:

I know it's nice to have a completely HM meal, but for me it's one step too far. Maybe I would think differently if I didn't work full time............

I work full time and so does my partner It's not something to do of an evening when you're starved certainly, and plain dried pasta is, as you say, pretty good stuff. But you just cannot buy egg pasta of the quality that you can do at home. Well, not for any price I'd be prepared to pay anyway. Also a lot of egg pasta will be made with battery eggs, which is a concern for me, plus it's much more flexible if you like filled pasta, because you can add anything you like to it, and use up leftovers most effectively - even a couple of mushrooms will go a long way in pasta. I do sometimes make it if I get home early, but mostly do a batch at a weekend when I have time to enjoy making it, and then make double or even more, to freeze either in sheets, or made up in to shapes or in a lasagne.

Do have a go, it really is worth it :j

Zziggi

thank you everyone for your help!

juno

If it's as easy as you all make it sound I think I'll have a go at making ravioli when I go home (so I don't have to clean up the mess, and it's not too inconvenient if I set fire to the kitchen or something!). I've never had it, and I always wanted to try it when I was younger.

Str4berr3

nabowla wrote:

Guys, this is supposed to be an OS website. So how come your posts keep on persuading me that I really do need all sorts of kitchen gadgets that I had never previously thought of buying? I've already rushed out and bought a slow cooker and started pricing up secondhand Kenwood Chefs on Ebay. Now I'm quite convinced that my kitchen really won't be properly stocked until I've bought a nice shiny pasta maker like the one in the photos. Honestly!!!! I hold you all entirely responsible for the fact that I have no cupboard space left in the kitchen. This board should come with a health warning..............:rolleyes:

So you havent bought the Breadmaker yet?

nabowla

Str4berr3 wrote:

So you havent bought the Breadmaker yet?

No, that's the one gadget I've managed to resist It's just me at home and I can't really justify buying a breadmaker when I eat so little bread. Besides, kneading dough by hand when I do get the urge to make HM bread is v.v. theraputic - i just think about work and the dough gets pounded to bits!

Mr_Proctalgia

I used to make my own pasta but decided that life was too short, some of the nicest was made with a 50/50 mix of hard flour and semolina with at least 4 egg yokes (per 8oz) don't be temped to make the green (spinach) or red (tomatoe) yourself the mess is unbelievable. I have a mangle type machine with a ravioli attachment and some other sets of cutters so I can make from about 1/2" to vermicelli, I also had an electric extruder type thingie (bit like a cement mixer attached to a mincer) that made spirals and such. I chucked the electric machine out because it really wasn't up to shop bought stuff.The trick with the mangle machine is to get plenty of turns into the dough (like making puff pastry) at least 6 turns makes nice pasta, all I really use if for now is making huge ravioli in which I put things like basil leaves in the last turn of the dough and roll flat so they look a bit special as starters. You will also have to get used to catching the finished pasta onto a wooden spoon handle and transferring it onto coathangers for drying. I found cornflour is the best thing to use for dusting and non-stick polling