Making Pasta - Part III

The last and final phase is to then roll all the sheets one more time into fettuccini or spaghetti, as they are the two options with my current machine. If you didn't want either of them, there are many, many ways to cut them up into different types of pasta. Lidia's Family Table just a aired a show entitled, "Fresh Pasta, The Long and Short of It", which is a great demonstration of this entire process and she shows how to create several handmade pastas, like gargenelli, from these sheets.
The first picture shows a side-by-side comparison showing what the sheet looks like when it comes out as spaghetti. As the pasta is cut, it is floured well to prevent sticking and put into containers headed for the freezer. I place the pasta in the containers as I'd want them come apart in boling water; gently laid on top of each other so that they come apart easily with no clumping or sticking. Lots O'Flour!! The third picture shows plain fettuccini getting ready for freezing. Before being run through the cutters, we cut the sheets of pasta into "normal" eating lengths. You don't want to handle them to much after they've been cut. You also can hang pasta to dry. When completely dry, you can safely store pasta without having to be refrigerated or frozen. I personally don't prefer this method because when they are dried, they are extremely delicate and can break easily.
When getting ready to cook the pasta, I ONLY take the pasta out of the freezer a minute before going into the boiling water. If you allow them to defrost, the water will combine with the flour and give you a gelatenous mess
I've kept pasta frozen, sealed very well, for up to 8 months and still tasted great. Although, it never lasts that long in the freezer.!
I guess I should do a "Making Pasta - Part IV" in the future when I have the digital camera around and it's cooked and dressed with gravy! Dee as well as others who cook with me in the kitchen often say that is like a "therapy" session for them. So if anyone in the Tampa Bay area needs some "therapy", give me a buzz!

Making Pasta - Part II

The pasta dough is then cut into pieces, flattened and passed through the rollers on the widest level initially to begin stretching the dough. It takes about six passes for each piece of dough to achieve these beautiful silky sheets! And each time we make it, the dough is always just a little bit different. Hot & humid conditions will produce a much different dough than cool and dry. It becomes quite the production line to get all sheets turned out. Dee and I have made pasta so much together that we just get into a rhythm and we crank these sheets out pretty fast! Depending on the wetness of the dough, flouring the pasta sheets is an important step as they get thinner and thinner. In the pictures below, the dough on the left is plain pasta and spinach pasta is on the right. Dee just had her nails done and didn't mind posing for the camera! Every time we roll out the dough, we are always in awe and at the beautiful silky long pasta sheets that we create. Tyler Florence of Tyler's Ultimate did an amazing show on lasagna with some very unique ways of creating some incredible dishes using pasta sheets. Once we have all the pasta sheets rolled out, the last and final step is deciding to roll the sheets into spaghetti or fettuccini. The spinach dough usually turn out better as fettuccini since it has a more fiber in the sheets with the addition of purred spinach. Additionally, rolling out the dough with a rolling pin is another option when you need sheets for making something like manicotti.
We usually have some type of fresh pasta dish on pasta making day. One of the greatest pleasures is deciding what kinda of sauce we are going to have that night for dinner since it is such a treat to have fresh pasta as it is oh so delicious!

Making Pasta - Part I

Dee and I made recently made homemade pasta. We used up a Five Pound Bag of Flour which made a boatload of Plain and Spinach pasta. I thought since we were making quite of bit, it was a good time to snap some pictures.
The top picture shows just about 4 cups of sifted flour. I usually just sift it right onto the cutting board. I started with 4 cups since this was a batch of spinach pasta.
In the middle picture I made a well in the flour and cracked 4 eggs and a added a pinch of salt. It's at this step that you can just use all egg yolks and a tablespoon or two of water. You'll get a much richer pasta. You can also use 2 eggs and 3 egg yolks. You get the idea. Next, with a fork I start beating the eggs but being careful not to break the flour ring as the egg will come pouring out.
I then start adding the spinach puree and continue beating the egg mixture. Additionally I start taking on more flour from about the rim an keep going until it gets too think for the fork. I then switch to my hands and finish until the dough is formed. It is needed for about 5 minutes and it should continue to take on more flour the more you kneed. It is then either put under a bowl or wrapped up in plastic and let to rest for at least 30 minutes.
I will make all my dough first. This particular day we made two batches each of plain and spinach. And that pretty much concludes the first part! This last picture shows all tools that we used!
On television, Mary Ann Espisito from Ciao Italia! as well as Lidia are always doing something interesting with homemade pasta dough! They are my teachers. Making homemade pasta is fun and we have such a good time, especially if a bottle of wine is involved!