Drying Homemade Pasta

Lisbet,

When I make pasta dough, I use a very simple recipe: 1 egg for each 100 grams of flour. Try to find "00" flour as it is a finer grind than our standard fine cake flours. You can also use semolina flour with the same ratio.

Now, here's the key... work the dough!!! The more you work it, the more elastic it will become. Put it through your pasta machine at the widest setting and then fold it and do it again, and again, and again, and again, slowly moving the thickness setting down a notch or two every few foldings. This will keep your pasta from falling apart all the time. The working breaks down the glutens in the flower to become more elastic.

As for storage, fresh pasta is best for use that day. If you freeze it, it will be 'okay' but not as good as it was fresh. You can make batches as small as you need BTW...

I'll make a one egg/100 grams for a batch for my wife and I which makes about 1/2 lb of pasta.

It is simple... we Italians have been doing it for years with the same recipe and method. Buon appetito!

Not sure why you freeze it Lizbet. Once you've dried it, it wil last forever anyway.

Correct me if i'm wrong someone. But i've been taught that if you keep pasta dry it will keep forever

fresh pasta should be air dried for a bit before use.

what I'm not understanding is why go to the time&trouble of making fresh pasta only to turn it into "boxed dry" pasta.....

I'm old school; heap of flour, make a hole, crack in egg(s)

store bought dry pasta is sure convenient-er and easier, but I've never thought that was the point when it got to fresh linguine / fettuccine / noodles / lasagna / whatever.....

Homemade pasta dries out really fast. You're supposed to cover it with a damp towel or Saran Wrap until you're ready to cook it.

I've made a lot of pasta from scratch, usually using just semolina and water. As FL Italian said, make sure to knead the dough plenty. (By the way, the technique for semolina pasta is just a little different. If you want detail on that, just ask).

Sometimes I make more dough than I need for a batch. What I'm not using right away, I usually knead, roll into sheets, sprinkle with AP flour, put between 2 pieces of waxed paper, and store in the fridge for later cutting. I haven't tried freezing dough, and I'm not sure but I would imagine the tiny ice crystals would change the structure a bit?? I have found that noodles that are cooked and then frozen in an airtight container come out pretty good when reheated in a microwave. If you do this, I recommend adding a little bit of vege oil to the noodles and stirring them to coat the noodles before freezing, so they don't stick together. I put them in sealed plastic bags with all the air squeezed out.

Drying the noodles works great. Just make sure it dries fast enough that no mold develops (which is rarely an issue), and make sure the noodles don't dry stuck together, either by totally separating each noodle, or dusting with flour and leaving plenty of air space in between noodles. I usually dust them with flour and very gently form little "clumps" kind of like packaged dried ramen noodles but not as neat, and let them dry. There are two reasons for handling them gently: one is that you don't want to stretch them, since after cooking, the thinner parts will be mushy when the rest of it is just right, and the other is that you don't want to press them together, which makes thick parts stuck together, that will be undercooked.

All dried pasta is brittle. If yours is extra brittle, the kneading tip should help. Do handle it gently when dry, at any rate.

>what I'm not understanding is why go to the time&trouble of making fresh pasta only to turn it into "boxed dry" pasta.....<


I often make more than i need. that way theres good pasta when one of my brood gets the munchies.
We always have lots of shop bought too, but you cant beat homemade can you?

>>but you cant beat homemade can you?

I agree with you on that point <g>

generalizing, I see the biggest difference just between "fresh" and "dried" - dried homemade does not seem to be a whole lot different than "the boxed stuff"

some of the farm markets have both fresh and dried from the same vendor - they say it's the same, label ingredients on the dried stuff don't list 'the chem lab' - flour salt egg or water - "should" be 'same'...?

I don't make pasta all that much anymore - no pasta maker/roller here so I do strictly flat noodles by hand mix / rollout. I like to make it fresh for chicken soup - as an example - only because I can make super wide noodles. I have one recipe that calls for chive noodles - that can be tough to find ready made!

When making semolina pasta, the main difference as opposed to using white flour is that the dough needs to sit for an hour or two.

Make a pretty stiff dough of semolina and water (I don't have proportions; I go by feel).

Knead some, mostly just to mix the ingredients. The main kneading comes later.

Make the dough into a ball and wrap it with plastic wrap. Traditionally it's put in a bowl and covered with a damp cloth, which works just as well. Let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour or two. If you want, you can put it in the fridge overnight or longer. If you do, use plastic wrap rather than a damp cloth, and warm it to room temperature before proceeding.

Now the texture of the dough will be very different from when it was first mixed. It will have gone from somewhat granular to very smooth; only then can it be made into great pasta. Proceed as with white flour dough, kneading plenty. I coat it with AP flour when rolling.

"FL Italian - LOL.......I'm of German heritage (what does a German know about Italian Cooking ??), married to an Italian !"

Lisbot,

My mother is German and is the best Italian cook I know... However don't ask her to make anything German... it's okay but her Italian is much better. She's also the one who taught me to cook 50 years ago, so don't discount it!!

:D

Making pasta from scratch is really fun and rewarding:D If you've tried out my suggestions, I hope your pasta has come out great. Whether you have or not, I hope you're having a great time with it.

:^)

oh man my favorite. we just made linguini last nite at work, dried it out and put it in fridge. same recipe as Fl Italian stated 1 egg and 100g of flour. we do have the "00" flour too, gnocci comes out real nice too. and makes good dough for ravioli aswell. i dont like adding semoline to mine as some may. we made some sweet potato, ricotta, carmalized onions and sundried tom. ravioli the other day too.

fresh is definatly better and yeah better eaten the day of.