Monday, August 16, 2010

Home Made Rigatoni

Fresh, home made pasta is a great thing, but most people stick to simple shapes like flat noodles. A few more might make filled pastas like ravioli or shapes like gnocchi.

But what about tubular pastas? Can you make those at home?

Yes, you can, if you have the right equipment.

Tubular pasta is extruded through dies, and I have an  attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer called the Pasta Press that's made to do just that. It came with dies for rotini, spaghetti, and several different sizes of tubular pasta.

I went with the die labeled "large macaroni" which made ridged noodles about the size of rigatoni.

I used the recipe from the KitchenAid manual that came with the Pasta Press. Unfortunately, the recipe uses cup measurements for the flour, so it's not as accurate as it could be. I estimated 4 ounces per cup, since it specified sifted flour.

The instructions about adding water is also just a bit ambiguous. I'm still not sure if the extra tablespoon of water is supposed to be to adjust the egg measure, or if it's in addition to that.

Basic Egg Noodle Pasta
adapted from the KitchenAid Pasta Press manual

4 large eggs
3 1/2 cups flour (I weighed this as 14 ounces)
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon salt

Break eggs into a glass (Why glass? I don't know. That's what the instructions said.) measuring cup.

Check to see that the eggs measure 7/8 of a cup. If less, add water to equal 7/8 cup.

Place flour and salt in the bowl of the stand mixer and mix with flat beater on speed 2, adding egg (and 1 tablespoon water?) gradually.

Mix for 30 seconds, then stop the mixer and exchange the flat paddle for the dough hook. Knead with the dough hook for 2 minutes at speed 2.

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead on a clean surface. It may appear crumbly. Hand knead until the dough is smooth, pliable, and holds together in a ball.

Form walnut-sized pieces and feed them into the pasta extruder. Cut and separate the pieces, and dry as desired.

Cook in salted boiling water until pasta is al dente.

I served the pasta with Italian sausage and peppers I had cooked earlier for sandwiches, and added homemade tomato sauce and fresh basil to round it out a bit.

I've got to saw that the press makes it really simple to make complicated pasts shapes. I've got to get better at cutting the pasta in completely even lengths. Meanwhile, I'm still tweaking the flour/liquid ratio since the included recipe isn't as accurate as it could be.
Yum

1 comment:

RoxC said...

That looks awesome! I was looking for the attachment that I saw on last week's episode of Top Chef and found your blog by luck. I am purchasing the KA attachment and making your recipe asap.

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