You've gotta roll with it

[venta]

At the weekend, I decided to make pasta.

Now, thus far everyone I've said that to thought I meant boil some water, put some pasta in it, and serve. I actually meant that I was going to make pasta, out of flour and eggs.

I was following instructions given in The Naked Chef - while I happily admit that Jamie Oliver himself can be quite irritating, I quite like his cookery books. The instructions basically go: get some 00-grade flour, get some eggs, make into dough. There's a bit more detail, but that's the gist.

So, I did that. The dough was extremely sticky and refused to behave nicely, so I added a little more flour until it stopped clagging to my fingers, the bowl, passersby, etc. Jamie wanted me to have a "smooth, silken, elastic dough". I was prepared to settle for "dough". To be honest, I wasn't sure what a silken dough would be like, and was rather hoping it would become obvious. It didn't.

Anyway, having let the dough rest a while I began to roll it out. Jamie recommends aiming for about a milimetre thickness. My dough wasn't having any of it. Roll this way... dough rolls out. Roll that way... other dimension shrinks dramatically.

So, basically, my dough failed to be elastic enough. I carried on anyway, and the resulting pasta was edible if a little odd... the dough having been far too thick, the pasta was surprisingly chunky. Possibly I could market it as a new style, I'm not sure.

However, I'm not sure how to fix it for next time. Maybe I didn't knead it for long enough, though I felt like I'd helped it do all the developing it was going to do. Maybe the dough was too dry. I had, after all, put more flour in than was recommended, but I can't see how you could have made it into a sensible dough without doing that.

Does anyone have any ideas ? Or does anyone have any general pasta-making recommendations ? Jamie recommends Tipo flour, but I couldn't find that round these parts so ended up with McDougal's 00 sauce and pastry flour.

Maybe it's just a matter of practice :)

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Possibly I could market it as a new style, I'm not sure.

Brickatelli?

I have no sensible suggestions for fixes to the actual pasta. I've never tried making it myself, at least in part because I envisage it turning out far, far worse than your attempt!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with pasta, but the subject line reminded me of the old joke:

Why did Liam Gallagher order soup in the restaurant?
Because you got a roll with it...

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

Yay fresh pasta! Have eaten proper fresh pasta once, in Italy. Awesome stuff. Much respect to you for giving it a go.

I don't have any dough-making suggestions, but for the transmogrification my Italian friend loves her new pasta-machine and is saving up for a Ravioli attachment for it.

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

If I may make a suggestion, buy yourself a pasta iron (A rolling machine for pasta) It is the only way. I used Jamies recipe myself and encountered a similar problem. I suspect he had access to quality pasta flour and eggs that us mere proles can only dream of.

But yeah, a pasta iron. I have one. I haven't used it since 2003.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

My recommendation is use a pasta machine -- if you haven't seen one, it's a kind of mangle-like affair that you set to the requisite thickness and it rolls it out for you as you turn the handle, also being capable of cutting it into whatever width noodles etc you require.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Even if the dough is sticky, don't worry about it and don't add any more liquid flour (silly me) for as long as you can stand it. Knead it enough, and it'll smooth out of its own volition, if the proportions are right. Too much additional flour will make the flour/liquid balance sufficiently wrong to make the dough have an odd texture and properties similar to what you describe. The same applies to making bread, too; resist the temptation to have clean hands, just keep kneading.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Really ? It didn't seem like it was going to come right, but maybe I didn't persevere enough.

I also made bread for the first time[*] at the weekend and that did have similar problems, and came out a bit heavy, so maybe you're right and I should have just kept going.

I hope to have another go soon, so will report back :)

[*] ish. The mother made all our bread when I lived at home, and I was often involved, but usually at the making-it-into-buns stage rather than the actual dough-making stage.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have a slightly odd approach to labour-saving devices of that nature, which is that I don't want to use one until I can do the thing correctly without. I still don't use the Kenwood for making pastry, because I feel I should be able to do it "properly" before "cheating".

Yes, I think the word for this attitude is "cussedness".

[venta.livejournal.com]

Brickatelli?

I'm not sure it was quite that bad :)

To be honest, I quite liked it but I have to admit it wasn't really what I was aiming for.

I cooked half the batch, and dried the other half out for use later. Or, as it turns out, didn't dry the other half out. I've just peeked in the box and discovered it going furry :(

[killalla]

You could try chilling the dough, to cut down on the stickiness, maybe? This might cause other problems, though. (Disclaimer: I have never made pasta before, although I quite enjoy eating it.)

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I reckon you need more kneading.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Did you have to master the art of sucking up dust from the carpet before you allowed yourself to use a hoover?

(Or am I being silly now?)

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

Only if she turns into the snuffleupagous :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I didn't, no :)

But then again I don't enjoy cleaning carpets, I don't wish to be able to impress and delight my friends with my amazingly clean carpets, and I don't take pride in the cleanliness of my carpets.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You do chill the dough before rolling it out (or at least Mr Oliver says you do, so I did :) The stickiness is more of a consistency issue so I don't *think* chilling would help, but it's certainly another avenue to explore in the future.

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

I understand that, as with so many of these things, ambient humidity (and age of the flour) can affect it the dough quite noticeably. Bravo for trying - I would never attempt this without a proper pasta-making mangle thing and even then you need practice to get the tension consistent. Do you have the toy?
I don't think have used pastry flour - internet trawling reveals that pasta flour can be used for bread or pizza, so I'd try pizza flour if not completely plain or Dove's Farm speciality pasta flour if you want a comparison (stockists and online stores - Goodness Direct def. have the pasta one.). I used a lot of Dove's Farm stuff when I was gluten free and think they're good. (Pasta recipe and flour discussion I found while thinking about this.)
There's a BBC blender technique here, where they don't seem fussed by which flour you use.

Pasta machine isn't cheating - its old school

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

The Italians have used them for AGES. It's not like a breadmaker, as undyingking points out below.

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

Also - what size eggs did you use?

Re: Pasta machine isn't cheating - its old school

[venta.livejournal.com]

That's why I put "cheating" in quotation marks - it isn't cheating, it isn't newschool, but I'd prefer to be able to do it without the machine since it's perfectly possible to do so.

More mundanely, we can't possibly fit another rarely-used gadget into our kitchen, so acquiring a pastamangle is right out anyway.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, I bought the flour the same day though I can't guarantee how long Mr Sainsbury had had it around!

The recipe and associated instructions I was using said to use 00-grade flour and large eggs, so that's what I went for. As I understand it, type of flour is largely a matter of taste. Once I get the basic practise down I'll experiment.

I've discovered on the web an awful, awful lot of bum recipes - people writing who don't really know what they're writing about, or writing from the US where the flour (among other things) is very, very different. So in an area where I know nothing I'd rather trust one reputable source than risk following duff advice.

Unbleached flour and technique details

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

Sorry - obsessed now
Italian flour rundown, including Tipo.
Durum and semolina are 'strong' flours, with the highest gluten contents of any flours. Pasta, like bread, needs flour high in gluten, so the sauce and pastry flour may have been too 'weak'.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Always wanted to do that and have often looked at the wierd mechanical gadgetry that always seems to be left in places like TK max or in kits at christmas in the supermarkets....

However the more i eat posh and fresh pasta the more i seem to quite like the reasonably cheap stuff....A nice penne with butter, garlic and cracked black pepper, al dente is damn right adictive....And with fresh pasta it always seems to start too soft for my likeing !

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it's one of those misconceptions that fresh pasta is "better". It is for some things, but you can't get it properly al dente so in other dishes it doesn't work so well.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Indeed....A penne aribatta is one of my faves...though its rare i'll have pasta at resturants as the slimy tasteless stuff you sometimes get just makes me too warey.