Obtaining rollers of various thicknesses is the key.
Author: Emiko Davies | Updated 11:40 AM, August 25, 2021
To make fresh pasta at home, you can simply arm yourself with a long rolling pin, some elbow grease, and a longer wooden board, just like sfogline (the name of the woman who rolls the pasta by hand) in Emilia for generations Do it Romagna. And, that is to say, there is a good argument for rolling pasta in this way-look at what chef Evan Funke has to say. But the invention of pasta manufacturers in the early 20th century gave many home cooks the option of making fresh pasta quickly and easily, until today.
Mini history lesson: In 1930, just outside Padua, Italy, Otello Marcato built the first pasta machine in the workshop behind his house. He would ride a bicycle, tie them to the back seat of the bicycle, and try to sell these machines in neighboring villages. A few years later, the Imperia company in Piedmont produced their pasta machines, focusing on exporting them to Italian immigrants in the United States. They found that this device allowed them to easily create a sense of home in a new country.
Imperia's machines and those made by Marcato have hardly changed since they were first manufactured, and should still be the first choice when looking for your first pasta machine. There are also electric pasta rolls and forming accessories used in many different brands of stand mixers (such as KitchenAid). There are also professional and semi-professional machines equipped with extruders on the market, which can create shapes that you cannot make by hand very quickly.
Once you have one, even the most basic machine, you can create endless possibilities. (Let's not be limited to pasta: technically, you can roll out any kind of dough here-it's perfect for making ultra-thin, crunchy cookie or pastry dough). The Roman food writer Rachel Roddy is the author of An AZ Pasta. She inherited her Imperia machine from a friend and provided some good guidance on where to preserve it.
"Not only did she give me practical lessons, she also showed me how easy and intuitive this machine was to make various shapes," Roddy recalled. "She suggested that I don't hide Imperia in a cupboard, but put it in an easily accessible and visible place. This is the best advice, and I believe this is part of the reason I use it often."
When it comes to choosing a home noodle maker, I think manual is the best choice, at least at first. Meryl Feinstein, the founder of Pasta Social Club and the resident pasta maker of Food52, agrees. "If you want to make pasta at the production level, choose a larger, electric one," she said. "But for home cooks (myself included!), I found that rolling out the dough with a crank can better understand what happened to the dough." Continue reading our main recommendations and expert tips before starting to work.
Traditional pasta machines are manual, which means you have to turn the crank with one hand while removing the pasta from the machine with the other hand. This is a skill you can learn like dancing: the more you do it, the better you get. The motor does not need to be shaken, which is very useful when you are making a lot of pasta or when you need to use your hands. However, because the results they produce are very similar to hand-rolled pasta sheets, you may need to think twice-especially when you consider the service life and maintenance of electric machines or accessories. Remember that manual machines have fewer precision parts, which means they will end up lasting longer. They are also easier to maintain and clean, and only need to be sprinkled with flour.
The ideal roller should be made of metal (usually aluminum or stainless steel) rather than plastic or rubber, and usually use a standard width of 150 mm or 180 mm. The product name usually indicates their width; in other words, the roller width of the Marcato Atlas 150 is 150 mm. The width between the rollers and the thickness of the pasta are controlled by the numbered knobs, and machines of different designs and brands will have different numbers of widths. The main function of these widths is to slowly lengthen and thin the pasta sheet, rolling up each width in order from thickest to thinnest. They also let you choose how thin the pasta should be. A more robust pasta, such as pasta with a generous beef rag, is not too thin and breaks easily. Tonnarelli noodles also need a thicker side. Sandwich pasta like ravioli can be thinner because you end up with double-layered pasta. I own an Imperia and Marcato pasta machine, and I personally appreciate that Marcato has more roller width settings; it can be more precise when deciding how thin or thick you want pasta.
Even with the most basic pasta machine, you can make a variety of different shapes of pasta. A flat piece of pasta can make for you lasagna, maltagliati (or "poorly cut" shapes, originally produced from pasta chips), pasta tubes, and every imaginable stuffed pasta. With some additional spaghetti tools, you can create ridged or embossed shapes, such as garganelli or corzetti. Many pasta machines are already equipped with attachments for spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti or fettuccine-ranging in width from 1.5 mm to 6.5 mm-although you can also cut through by simply using a sharp knife or pastry cutter The rolled parts are used to make these accessory doughs.
There are a variety of accessories and accessories to help you make the most of your pasta maker. The more interesting one is the ravioli accessory, both Imperia and Marcato made one. To use it, you must cleverly put two pieces of pasta inside, add fillings between them, and then slowly turn; the attachment does the rest. Other accessories can make ricotta cheese, Reginette or Malfaldine for your fringe edges. Imperia has a "millegnocchi" accessory for the production of short pasta shapes such as gnochetti sardi and cavatelli.
A pasta extruder is a manual or electric device that pushes pasta dough through a mold to form long and short pasta shapes ranging from spaghetti and spaghetti to spaghetti and fusilli. The dough is forced through a cylinder and extruded from the mold, you can change it according to each shape of pasta, and cut it to the length you like when leaving the extruder (manually or using a rotating blade). A manual extruder can be as simple as a metal cylinder, with a hand crank (much like a pasta roll) and replaceable discs for fixing the molds of each pasta shape. Marcato's Regina is a manual extruder with a steel die, which has a larger body for mixing the dough added to it.
One of the biggest differences in using a pasta extruder is the consistency of the pasta dough. Lee explained that you also need to pay attention to the flour used with the extruder. “The only problem with using an extruder is to choose only coarsely ground semolina and not to over-hydrate the mixture—usually one part water to three parts semolina, although this may change depending on the shape,” Li suggested. Morris had similar suggestions for the KitchenAid extruder. He told me "The real secret to the success of the extruder is to control the moisture in the dough. Unlike non-extruded pasta dough, it must be relatively dry, similar to breadcrumbs coated with butter ( It should be fragile, but it will stick together when pinched with your fingers)."
To date, Marcato's most popular product is Atlas 150, a chrome steel machine with eight shiny and matte colors to match your kitchen aesthetic. One advantage of Marcato machines is that their rollers have 10 different thicknesses, ranging from 0.5mm to 4.8mm, which gives you more choices. The spaghetti and spaghetti accessories can make noodles from 1.5 mm to 6.5 mm, and there are 12 other optional accessories available for different shapes and types of pasta. Feinstein is also a fan. "I have tried several brands, and every time I go back to my manual Marcato Atlas 150," she said. "It may not have the speed of a motor, but it can produce very smooth and consistent pasta every time." However, you can upgrade your Atlas with a "pastadriver" motor accessory. This turns your manual machine into an electric machine, which means you don't need to clamp it to the surface to use it.
The classic Imperia machine offers rollers of six thicknesses and an attachment for installing spaghetti (2 mm thick noodles) and spaghetti (6.5 mm thick), while their Titania model is an all-in-one machine with an integrated noodle cutter . These stainless steel machines are sturdy and durable, especially Titania, and have a charming retro look. That's because Imperia has never actually updated the design of the machine-you will find that they have not changed in any way from the way they were advertised in the 1950s. Like Roddy, I own and use my Imperia the most. I find it to be a sturdy and reliable pasta machine that is very simple to use. My kids like to use it as much as I do.
If you already own a KitchenAid blender and spaghetti roller, and want to know where to play the spaghetti game next, then please try one of them. It is connected to your blender and comes with six different molds for making bucatini, spaghetti, rigatoni, fusilli and two sizes of macaroni. The printer is equipped with built-in wire cutters to control the length of the pasta. It is a favorite of Pasta Et Al's blogger Alec Morris. He likes it because it can make "hand-made pasta that is very tedious and time-consuming, or it can only be used as a supermarket dry pasta." In addition to being able to make last-minute macaroni very quickly, he added that if you just start Using extruded pasta is worth considering. "No matter which machine you use, interchangeable plates will add a new series of pasta shapes to your repertoire," he said.
La Monferrina is the other half of the Imperia company (also known as Imperia & Monferrina), which specializes in electric and professional pasta machines. When I asked one of my favorite pasta-Li Yunhua, the private catering chef behind Benfatto95 in Singapore-which extruder he recommended, he focused his attention on Monferrina. Although he uses La Monferrina P3, which is a restaurant-grade electric pasta machine, he recommends that manufacturers keen on pasta use Monferrina Dolly for small-scale tabletop production. Dolly is a compact all-in-one motor for mixing, kneading (it is also suitable for bread or pizza dough) and extruding shapes, otherwise it would be tricky to make by hand. Just like in a professional pasta machine, the mold is made of bronze, which creates an ideal rough texture and helps the sauce stick to each noodle (teflon coated inserts can also be used To get a smoother texture). Using one of them, you can launch flat pasta for making lasagna or sandwich pasta, and you can choose the available molds, almost any pasta shape you can think of, from letters and risotto to wheels and shells.
Once I lent my spaghetti machine to my elderly neighbor in Florence, she complained that her son had borrowed her spaghetti machine and threw it into the dishwasher and destroyed it. Do not clean your pasta maker with water or soap-just dust the flour. I find it useful to roll some excess pasta dough over it to pick up the stray flour inside. Roddy has a great tool to clean her Imperia: "I use a paintbrush with beautiful soft bristles to clean it", adding, "At best, wipe it with a damp cloth."
If you do not cook pasta immediately or within a few or a few hours, the best option is to sprinkle some fine flour or some extra flour, and then dry or freeze. Long pasta can be rolled into loose "neses" and placed on a wooden board to dry, and Roddy hangs her pasta on a hanger. For long-term storage, Feinstein chose a refrigerator. “Just put the pasta on a tray sprinkled with semolina and freeze until solid, about 25 minutes, then shake off the excess flour, transfer it to a freezer-safe bag, and put it back into the freezer,” she said. "When you're ready to cook, go straight from the refrigerator to boiling water-no need to defrost. The sooner you cook the frozen pasta, the better it will taste, but it can be kept for up to three months."
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