Saturday, January 18, 2003


testing, testing

recent readers may recall that i bought the pasta roller attachment for my kitchen aide stand mixer. today i made my test batch of pasta.

i'm a total pasta newbie. so it was an adventure, one i highly recommend.

made the basic recipe: 3-1/2 c. king arthur unbleached all purpose flour; 4 large organic eggs; 1 tablespoon water; 1/2 teaspoon salt. that's it.

lightly beat the eggs & water together with a fork. dump all ingredients in the mixer, attach the flat beater, and mix on speed 2 until the doughclumps roughly on the beater.

add another tablespoon of water if necessary to make this happen. change to the dough hook and knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes. knead by hand for 2 minutes. flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic, and let rest in the fridge for an hour.

my, isn't that simple! this first batch has to be wasted because the roller parts have a lot of packing and metal dust in them. you just have to work this out. but it's good practice too!

now i have to warn you that you will need plenty of surface. in my bklyn apartment, which is large by new york standards, i have a marble dining table that seats 8. and i filled it with pasta sheets from the above 1 lb. dough recipe.

so take my advice -- clear as much surface as possible while the dough rests. you'll need every inch.

also, find an extra salt shaker or something and fill it with flour. put newspaper on the floor in front of the mixer.

drink half a glass of wine. channel your inner nonna. put your hair up in a bun, roll up your sleeves, and take off all your rings and bracelets -- the roller has a strong pull and we don't want to get anything caught in it!

put on some relaxing music. now the hour has passed, and we're ready!

take the dough out, unwrap it, and use your handy baker's knife (the kind with inches marked on the blade is most handy here) to divide the dough in 6 or 8 pieces.

flatten these pieces to about 1/2-inch thick. attach the roller to the mixer's nose, tighten the thumbscrew, take off the beater or dough hook, and turn the mixer to speed 2. here we go!

knead the dough at setting 1 by just feeding it through. it's so easy! when the dough comes out, lay it on the counter top, shake some flour on it, smooth the flour out, and fold the dough in half or thirds.

turn it 90 degrees and feed this end through the roller. repeat the process. now the dough is kneaded, and is silky smooth.

you'll see already little dust and metal bits in the dough, especially on the sides that have touched the edges of the roller. don't worry.

now it's time to thin the dough. pull and twist the roller knob to setting 2. feed the dough through. flour. fold. feed again.

set the knob to 3. feed the dough. flour. fold. feed again.

set the knob to 4. i think you have the idea. by this time the pasta sheet will be long. you might want to use your baker's knife to cut it in half or even thirds to make it easier to handle. try to keep each cut pasta sheet about 8 or 9 inches long. (too short and the pasta will look stubby. who wants stubby fettucine?)

you may have to fold up the ends and sides to get neat squares between rollings. if so, be sure to press out all the air. otherwise the bubbles pop forcefully and make holes in the dough.

how thin to roll? having done it, i now personally think to setting 6 for ravioli, tortelloni, or soup noodles. setting 4 for fettucini, lasagne, thick spaghetti, or pappardelle. setting 5 for delicate linguini.

so roll out all 8 pieces. since you will have cut them in about 3 pieces lengthwise by the time you're done, you'll end up with about 24 8- or 9-inch long pasta sheets. see why you need surface?

dust all these with flour. admire your acre of pasta. 1 lb. of dough makes a tremendous amount of rolled fresh pasta. thank goodness you can freeze this stuff!

ok, the roller comes with a linguini cutter and a fettucini cutter. turn the mixer off and swap the roller for the cutter of your choice.

take your setting 4 pasta sheet, cut it all nice and square with your baker's knife so it will look pretty, and feed through the cutter.

wa-llah! picture-perfect silky beige fresh fettucine that smells deliciously eggy.

feeding setting 4 dough through the linguine cutter gives you something that looks like thick spaghetti.

setting 5 dough through the linguini cutter gives you delicate linguini. for lasagne, leave the sheets whole. pappardelle, dust sheets with flour, lay flat, and cut by hand into 1/2-inch slices with a bread knife or the baker's knife for a rustic look. etc.

now what to do with all this pasta? the books coyly say "use right away, dry or freeze."

but what do these options really entail? if you stick a handful in boiling water, it cooks quickly. in about 1 minute! as soon as it floats, it's done. you can't eat it because of the metal dust, but if you bite a strand in half and spit it out, you'll find lovely, tasty, al dente pasta.

drying it is tricky. it's very fragile as it dries, until it's really really hard. which take hours and hours. i have a few test strands that have been drying straight and flat on the table for about 5 hours now. and they're not ready.

until it can stand handling and being put in a tall jar, i think you're talking 8 hours or overnight. so your surfaces are going to be tied up for a good while!

on the tv food shows, you see the experts just shake some flour on the fresh pasta, coil it into little nests and call it a day. hah! not so simple!

don't try this until the pasta has sat for about 15 minutes after cutting, and really cover it well with flour or else you'll get a gooey, useless ball. trust me! i wound up with several gooey balls. all bad.

i guess after you've let the cut pasta rest, covered it in flour, coiled it into non-sticky, non-gooey nests, shaken more flour over it -- only then should you pack your nests in a single layer in a freezer-proof container and then freeze the stuff.

except you can't do that with this batch, because of the dust, remember? after that, have another sip of wine and contemplate the many feet of pasta you have to throw away. . .

but seriously, the pasta roller attachment is fun and easy. give yourself about 3 hours to make the test batch. some people report their roller parts have so much dust, they had to make 2 or 3 test batches.

so be aware of this possibility. use the test batches to figure out how to arrange your surfaces etc. for when you really have all this fresh pasta to deal with.

what the heck to do with it all??? that's the only problem i see. . .

posted by fortune | 7:14 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments