pasta makers

[Andy Hamilton]

I have an amazon gift voucher to use up, is it worth getting a pasta machine?

I have tried making pasta by hand on a few occasions and each time a resounding disaster as I can't get the dough thin enough. I thought getting a machine might sort out this problem. So are they worth the cash?

[Cheezy]

If you like making pasta then yes!

I used to make my own all the time, but the novelty has worn off.

It is still much better than the fresh you can buy in the shops. Some of the egg pasta recipes are mental in terms of the number of egg yolks you need. You need a chicken farm just to afford them!.But it's bloody fantastic stuff. Make sure you buy Tipo 00 flour.

Mine cost about £30, and will definitley last a life time.

It is still a very trial and error process. As in pizza making using semolina flour to dust your pasta will stop it sticking. I also have a drying thing (basically a broom handle with dowling pushed through on a square base. This is a great way to stop the pasta sticking.

The secret is to make the pasta as dry as possible, so that it's really hard to kneed, but not so dry it wont form a nice ball.. Then you pass it through the machine. If you make it too "wet" when you come to boil it it swells up too much and goes soggy.

[Andy Hamilton]

I thought that it would go well with my aim to stop using so much plastic it I made my own. cheers for the brillant advice I think I shall send off for one soon!

[hedgewizard]

We got one as a wedding present but never used it... I may need to dust it off and give it a go. Where can you get tipo 00 flour, and can you dry your pasta or does that make it all pointless?

[Shirley]

I've got Doves farm Type 0 flour for pasta but I haven't used it yet - that's a disgrace as I bought it when out with Hillbilly ages ago!!!! Naughty... will try and make amends this weekend. Got no machine though so will be scratchy pasta - can't remember what antonio carluccio called it... rough and ready... nowt fancy.

[red]

mcDougals do a 00 flour - and i have found it in sainsbury's - yes dreaded supermarket an all that...

WE broke with convention and actually continued to use the pasta machine - more than once! it does make yummy pasta, its a bit of effort but you have to see it as entertainment...

made sucessful spinache pasta too.

worth buying a machien that you can add attachments. we have a spagetti attachment.

Red

[Wormella]

we brought a massive kit with a drier in a charity shop (saved about £90 )

we do use it quite a lot, it's very satisfying to get such decent results without the cost of fresh pasta.

00 flour is fairly easy to get hold of, or alternitly we soemtimes use plain bread flour and pass it though a few more times.

ooh, spinach pasta - we've got loads fo spiniach to use up.

[Stonehead]

I prefer the low-tech approach...

1lb fine white flour (the higher the gluten the better)
4 eggs (add more yolks for richer pasta, but I can rarely be bothered)
Pinch of salt

Pour the flour on to your table or work bench and make a hollow mound. Crack the eggs into the hollow, then add the salt. Work together until smooth and then knead for 15 minutes until it's nicely elastic.

Split the dough in two, then roll out from the middle. A little semolina flour, a marble work top and a marble rolling pin are the easiest; but 1950s formica tops are almost as good! Modern faux granite and marble is horribly sticky so I like to use a highly varnished table...

Now, the trick with rolling it thin is to wind the pasta around the rolling pin, place the unrolled edge in front of you and then gently stretch the pasta as you push away with the rolling pin.

This is hard work and as Franco's Mamma told me, "you're only doing it right when your bum crack is sweating"! (Franco was a work colleague back in Victoria from an Italian-Australian family.)

Anyway, to make tagliatelle, you then dust the pasta dough with semolina, roll it into a tube and then slice it into strips with a razor sharp knife. Franco's Mamma used a cut-throat razor. To dry the pasta, she'd stretch a towel between the backs of two chairs and then lay the pasta over the towel.

But far more fun than making tagliatelle is making pasta shapes (well, it was certainly fun making them with a very large and garrulous Italian mother, a couple of bottles of home-made red wine, and a supposed friend who kept telling his Mamma that I needed a proper girlfriend).

We made cavatelli (instead of rolling the dough flat, roll it into a long snake, cut it into lengths and then slit the lengths lengthwise with your razor (or knife). Let them dry and then cook. On another occasion, we made farfalle (butterflies) and very memorably black tagliatelle (with squid ink).

Hope this helps someone and amuses everyone else...

[hedgewizard]

Sounds fab, I can picture the scene now (if only had I the wine...)