Homemade Pasta

[toggleswitch2]

Free-licious is delicious!

~Oh don't you just love gadgets!!!!! Steve what is next to the Faberware electric skillet????
Yes, I love my Gadget, er gadgets.

Directory:
Top shelf- Food (obviously)!
3rd floor- Rear- juicer, 3qt/3L Farberware electric pot (from the 50's, I think), iced-tea maker. Front: mini-chopper and pasta machine.

2nd floor - 6qt/6L electric soup pot, Farberware electric frying pan. Wonderful to cook something with safe electricity rather than gas when nappoing during the day!

1st floor- left: crock pot/slow/cooker, right multi-funcion rice cooker.

The irony, Terry is that I can't use the nice (cool) electrics in summer when the A/C is on... lack of sufficient power.. I have to cook with (hot) gas!

Hey Chuck if you claim to be the bigger "bitch", who am I to argue.. *LOL*

 

[toggleswitch2]

~as I cam, can you see me trying to use (one with) my hand-held crank?

LMAO. Do you really want to know what I was about to write?

Let's not and say we did. (OMG I need to stop crying/laughing).

Who luvz ya baby?

 

[autowasherfreak]

I've made homemade pasta using the pasta attachment on my KitchenAid many times. Homemade pasta can't be beat!

 

[jeffg]

Question for Carlone/favorit

Which Italian pasta makers (the manual ones) are preferred in Italy? The Imperia and Atlas seem to have good reviews, and I'd like to get one that's wider, at least 8 inches instead of 5 or 6.

Please no comments, Toggles.

 

[bewitched]

Handmade pasta

If you want to do real homemade pasta the only tools you need are a plain marble table and the tool of the picture.
That's it! leave alone all the pastamatic and similar things. Once you use it then you have to wash all the parts from sticky pasta...something that will make you think twice before reuse it!My mother in law is from Emilia Romagna and she faints just at hearing about making pasta with such gears or (worst) buying it...

 

[jeffg]

I wish my rolling pin (and knife) skills were good enough to make capellini or spaghetti, but no such luck.

 

[favorit]

.. so she's a true razdora (emilan housewife)

as she uses the mattarello (rolling pin) only !! )
Does she make ravioli di zucca (pumpkin filled ravioli) too ?

we italians are a bit on the purist side, each part of Italy has its own regional mania )
I.e. Genoans are horryfied when they hear their "pesto" (Genoa typical basil based pasta dressing) is made with a food processor ... tradition says that basil must be worked with a pestle and nothing else

Jeff, Imperia are the most common ones (at least among those people who still make fresh pasta by themselves)

 

[favorit]

Jeff

it' s just a question of training (and some little tricks)

The pin has to be always "soiled" with some flour, to avoid pasta sticking on it.

Now and then change the pin position/movements. Perpendicular strokes give a more uniform result

 

[maytagbear]

I made pesto

in a mortar and pestle once upon a time, but mercy, I am more than willing to accept the compromises of using a processor. I'm not 27 any more.

I even have been known to substitute blanched almonds for pignolia.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[appnut]

Anthony, thank you for the information. The clsoe market is 58 miles from here. It's difficult to find someone that's able to drive me that distance. But I'll remember the information.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Hey Chuck if you claim to be the bigger "bitch", w

Not claiming to be the bigger one, but you put the question to 'bitches' in general!!! Guess I had to be one since we got ours for less!!!

Chuck

 

[toggleswitch2]

So Terry

Here is that electric "soup pot" you had asked about.

It is a Cooks Essentials brand, sold by QVC.

Fully immersible and DW safe --yeah right-- it faded the area where the thermostatic control/power cord goes in.

I don't generally care for cooking on non-stick coatings, but since it was a gift, I use it and love it!

 

[toggleswitch2]

We now return to our regularly scheduled programme

.

 

[nmassman44]

I have that Ron Popiel pasta maker that I got in the 90's. It worked OK and I have not used it in years. Barilla and Stop and Shop make my pasta...way too much work!
And the pasta maker kept snapping the die ring lock in half. And getting pieces for replacement is no longer an option....they stopped making it.

 

[tlee618]

Steve, that is one nice looking pot!! I use to watch a lot of QVC cooking shows, (too many really) I wonder if they are still pushing Cooks Essentials?

 

[louvac]

Though there isn't anything quite like homemade pasta, by hand, the machines do run a close second. I recall my grandmothers both making homemade pasta and particularly spaghetti and fettucine, and then draping it over wooden poles (probably from old broom sticks--washed, of course!) and then taking it to the bedroom and laying it down on top of a covered chenille bedspread to dry a bit before boiling.

"Univeral" (not as in, Landers, Frary & Clark) motors are avaialable for the Altia, Atlas, Imperia, Vitantonio (now, Villaware) and others through Villaware. I just love their products! The motor sells for about $49 and is well worth the money because for one thing it maintains a constant speed, secondly, it frees your hands, and lastly, it saves so much time because you can continuously feed the dough through. It's particularly handy for making lasagna strips or sheets for ravioli forms.

And you do need to pass it through several times down to the thinner setting of your choice.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Anyone ever have black pasta? Saw it in a closeout store. Coloring is squid ink.

 

[butch-innj]

I've seen that in an Italian grocery store around here.
It looked disgusting so I didn't buy it.
I don't know of anyone in my area thats tried it and I wasn't going to be the 1st.
Isn't squid ink like a dye?
Wouldn't it make the inside of your mouth ....black?
What kind of sauce would you use with it?

 

[bewitched]

Black pasta

Black pasta is usually made with squid or cutfish ink. It is generally used with fish sauces. I personally think it's revolting.

 

[panthera]

The

taste is just barely different to non-colored pasta.

I like it - it makes a lovely note when I have a really red sauce. Works great with simpler sauces.

Definitely worth trying.

Goodness, there is more to the wonderful Italian kitchen than pizza and oregano.