Pasta Maker Basics

Pasta holds a special place in our memories of childhood. Even if you didn't grow up Italian, chances are you remember eating long strands of spaghetti and slurping up the sauce as you went. Pasta is made of simple ingredients: flour, eggs, olive oil and water. Don't let the simplicity of the ingredients fool you into thinking that commercially made pasta is no different from homemade. Homemade pasta is true comfort food and easy to make. In our house, the making of pasta becomes a collaboration. There is something for everyone to do, no matter how young or how old. And the fruits of our labors end up in a wonderful family dinner that we all enjoy together.

The key to making great pasta is to get the dough to the right consistency and then rolling it to an even thickness before cutting it into various shapes. Some cooks prefer to roll the dough out by hand using a rolling pin and a smooth surface, like a wooden cutting board or a marble slab. I recommend the use of a pasta machine to achieve expert results consistently. With so many different types of machines on the market to choose from, the only decision you'll have to make is manual versus an electric model. Good manual hand cranked machines should be heavy and have a base that clamps to the table or surface you are working on. Atlas, Imperia and CucinaPro are quality names for manual machines. Weston, Lello and Imperia all make electric pasta machines, and Kitchenaid does double duty by offering an attachment to its standard mixer. Although I have the Kitchenaid pasta attachment, I prefer to use my hand crank Atlas pasta machine, because it always seems like more fun to have one person turn the crank while someone else catches the dough.

You can choose to mix your dough by hand or by using an electric mixer of some type. Either method produces a soft, silky dough. If you are making dough by hand, place your flour in a bowl large enough to give you room to mix all ingredients together and make a well in the center of the flour. In another bowl, crack your eggs and beat them slightly, adding the oil and water, and mix well. Pour the liquid mixture into the well in the flour and mix with a fork until the flour is moistened and begins to clump together. Now the fun begins as you start playing with the dough.

Lightly dust flour onto your hands, to prevent sticking, and grab one part of the clump. Fold that part onto the center of the dough, press down and out toward the rim of the bowl. Continue to fold and press the dough and rotate the bowl as you do so until the dough no longers sticks to the sides and you have one piece of dough. Turn this out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough for 2 to 3 minutes longer, turning and folding the dough into intself. This activates the gluten in the flour which gives the dough its elastic properties.

The purpose of kneading the dough is to make sure that all the ingredients are fully incorporated together and to get the gluten in the flour to begin its work. If your dough is not coming together, sprinkle it with a little water and continue kneading. If the dough is sticking to your hands or the board, add a little flour by dusting the surface of the dough and the board. The dough is ready to rest when it becomes smooth, soft and pliable. Let it sit on the board at room temperature covered with a clean kitchen towel for about 30 minutes before rolling the dough.

Your pasta machine will come with basic instructions on how to process the dough. The basic steps are to roll pieces of dough through the rollers at thinner and thinner settings until you get nice, elongated, resilient pieces of dough. From there you cut the dough into whatever shapes you want. Dough may be cut and formed by hand, like simple papardelle, which are strips about 1 1/2 inches wide. All the pasta maker machines come with some attachments for cutting the dough. Tagliatelle and tagliolini are common pasta shapes that most of the manual machines produce. Electric pasta machines frequently have attachments that can extrude the dough into shapes like spaghetti and capellini.

After you have cut and shaped your pasta, the pasta needs to dry out a bit before it is cooked. Dry the pasta at room temperature on a lightly floured board or baking sheet. The flour helps keep the pieces of pasta from sticking to each other and helps seal the noodle. If you have made more pasta than you need for the meal you can freeze it on a baking sheet and then put the frozen pasta into freezer bags or containers for future use. If you just had a ravioli making party, you will be able to enjoy homemade raviolis any time. Pasta also dries well, although you will still want to cook it us within a couple of days because your dough does not have preservatives in it. Long pasta shapes can be dried in little nests or you can use a pasta drying rack, which allows you to dry the pasta as long threads.

Homemade pasta has a rich, delicate flavor and a softer texture than commercially processed pasta. It is made with fresh ingredients and they say that the good energy that goes into the making of the food you eat is healthier for you. Once you have eaten a dish or two of your own pasta and had the pleasure of making it with family or friends, you will realize that you want to make fresh pasta a regular event in your kitchen. Now that's comfort food. Start your own family tradition of making pasta together and create some special family memories.

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