CS Fresh Pasta

Finally, a pasta recipe that includes gluten! I've been looking for quite a while. Thanks - I'm excited to try it. But I do have a question: why (in the world) do we knead by hand when the mixer's already out, plugged in, and dirtied?

Find more posts tagged with

Recipes Q's

Comments

Chris_Cook_15681

Pasta dough, in my experience, is way too dense/heavy for the mixer to handle.

com-chefsteps

Really? Naw, I do it all the time*. Flail that thing around!

Manfred_18311

Its not so

much about being fast or simple its more about going the extra mile in order to

reach top quality. The dough kneaded by hand after machine premix insures for

one, all ingredients is completely worked through in the dough; to the other it

gives more density to the dough.

As said it

is may not really important but it’s the extra mile, why concerning plating, it

makes to the taste no difference if you just pot turn over it.

com-chefsteps

Fascinating. I'll look forward to trying both and learning the difference! How would you describe the difference, quality-wise? Maybe a texture thing?

Manfred_18311

It’s sure

affects the texture and density. You will see the difference once you roll out

the dough. If finished by hand kneaded the structure becomes more even and homogenous.

Resting the

dough for period of time do similar, the dough “relax” and gets elastic by the

adjustment and reaction of the mixture as eggs ( water, fat, minerals, amino

acids, vitamins) and flour, most flour today contains added ascorbic acid for

kneading tolerance and other additives depending on the flour or purpose of the

dough chosen.

Just watch

Grant Lee in the video, he is kneading it perfectly just like a baker would do.

Brandon_34695

The cool guy in the video is Nick G. I've always rested the dough before rolling out, often in the fridge. The thing I was missing was drying the surface out for a few minutes prior to cutting, it is much cleaner.

Manfred_18311

@Brandon

your right its Nick G, Sorry Nick I guess I have seen to many vids with Grant working on

the table. Was watching the pastt through.

Norm_Morgan_67632

Hi All
Just a silly question but once you have formed your individual noddles and want to put away in fridge or freeze at that stage what do you do to stop the whole mass from sticking together? precook? if so what do add to the water?

FrankM_3301

no precook. i place on sheet pan lined with silpat and freeze...then ziplock for longer storage

com-chefsteps

I had the morning off, so I tried the recipe for lunch. So far, what I'm really loving about this particular recipe is that my kitchen isn't dusted with flour. I did need to add a little bit of extra liquid (less than a Tbsp total of olive oil, which I find helps make the dough a little more malleable, and water) in order for my dough to ball up at all.

Naturally, I machine-kneaded as threatened, although I remembered that I do have a habit of hand-kneading for a few seconds at the end just to get the feel for the dough. Super-springy with all that gluten.

It rolled beautifully.

Rather than drying the dough on my marble countertop, I couldn't resist using tea-towels as taught in school. I tried the countertop for a few seconds, but in this case I considered counter-sticking a realistic danger. You can see, though, I've already wiggled too many variables for a formal experiment. I cut it somewhere between tags and linguini.

Next time, I'll try taking the thinness down to 7. This was fine, but I think the dough can take it.

Finished with a little San Daniele, chicken stock, olive oil, garlic and herbs (I was out of cheese). Plating feedback for a casual lunch gratefully accepted.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

The texture looks really neat just from the picture.

Brendan_Lee_56950

That screams stroganoff to me for some reason.

com-chefsteps

@Johan, I did dig the texture - nice bite, almost surely from the extra gluten. And @Brendan, yes, I agree - I think the thickness of the noodle and the yellowness from the egg invite thoughts of stroganoff. The noodles look wider in the pic than they seemed in real life - they were almost certainly 1cm thick exactly, since I cut them with an accordion cutter. This would have been carbonara, but sweety doesn't like the egg thing. But imagine a sous-vide soft egg on top...

What's ridiculous/awesome is that I can *still* hear my Basics chef's voice in my head saying "no blue plates, ever." Even if it's just for a leftovers-lunch trying a new recipe.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Blue plates are special

com-chefsteps

lol

com-chefsteps

Day 2, having stored the pasta in the fridge overnight, the dough was notably browner. Still workable, but wouldn't be confused with the just-made. Cut fine, cooked fine (with brussels sprouts and an SV egg today).

com-chefsteps

oh, and a close-up

com-chefsteps

Sweety made holiday lasagna using CS pasta. I do find it consistently helpful to add a little extra water and olive oil to the dough; otherwise, it doesn't seem to come together fully - leaving a quarter cup of sesame seed-sized clumps of dry dough in the bottom of the mixing bowl. It's possible I'm just impatient and don't let it finish, or that hand-mushing would fix it, or that it's winter with 20% humidity in my kitchen.

Brandon_34695

Hey Ted, I share your impatience. If I ever manage to get my hands on a chamber vacuum, one of the first things I'll try is the trick of rapidly hydrating a dough like this by tossing it into the vacuum. How was the texture of the fresh noodles at the end? It looks really nice.

com-chefsteps

@Brandon_, this was my third time making it, and the texture seems generally lovely. "Toothy" isn't my favorite word in general, because who knows what the hell it really means, but it's as close as I can get. For this 2nd lasagna, sweety did _not_ par-boil the pasta before cooking, and left the sauce runnier so it could be soaked up by the pasta. It was delicious and I appreciated saving the effort, but I did prefer the par-boiled pasta.

What I especially liked in both lasagnas was that the top layer of pasta, exposed to the air, and some of the side-layers of pasta, against the glass, ended up semi-baked or semi-fried, making it fully-cooked but crunchy - not a traditionally desirable effect, I know, but really pleasant to chew on. I vaguely remember a type of pizza, maybe from Abruzzo, which was layers of bread and salumi topped with pasta and baked in a casserole dish, with the same textural idea.

Lennard__34626

I have a question about fresh pasta. I'm not an expert on the subject but a lot of videos I've watched seem to say to cut or shape the pasta once it has been rolled(essentially removing the 20 min drying step in the chefsteps video), what is the reason for that? The Americas test kitchen video instructs to cover the rolled pasta with a damp cloth while rolling out other batches

Brendan_Lee_56950

Mostly for time saving purposes. ATK is all about saving you time. I find that the drying step helps cut cleaner edges but overall it's not necessary IMO. I usually just cover the excess in plastic wrap while cutting but not usually anything damp.

tshewman

I personally vary it depending on the type of pasta dish. I find the slightly dried dough sheets tend to move through the unit more smoothly (similar to what Brendan finds). Interestingly enough, I find that it also leaves more small irregularities/edges and the sauce tends to cling to the noodle a little better (purely subjective). However, for Ravioli, I tend to move immediately from the sheets into creating the ravioli while it is still moist (while the remaining balls of dough are still in wet towels).

Brandon_34695

If you compare to the French Laundry pasta dough and cutting immediately, it is many times easier to get good results with the CS recipe and letting the surface air dry for those few minutes. I get a lot of failed cuts without the step, both with an imported hand crank pasta maker, and the kitchenaid.

Pepijn_31744

Hand Crank; Pasta Maker sound like the name of some failed 90s super hero. But I do agree with you @Brandon_, drying does tend to make cutting easier, might be confirmation bias though.

Brandon_34695

I can add that I've made the CS recipe with an equal weight of Cup4Cup and had pretty pleasant results.

tshewman

Majority (including BTE) I've made is with C4C. For those looking for a gluten free flour and can tolerate a very small amount of dairy (small amount of milk powder in it), it is worth a try. Expensive by the small bag, much more reasonable by the large bag.

Lennard__34626

So it sounds like there are two schools of thought, you either dry it, or you prevent it from drying out by coverig it with cling film or a damp cloth, sounds like two extreme opposites...

Also, the last time I made ravioli, they looked great when they were rolled out and moulded into shape, but once they were out in water, the pasta shrank considerably and gave it unpleasant wrinkled appearance. What's the best way to minimize this? Rest the ravioli in the fridge to let the gluten relax before cooking?

Brendan_Lee_56950

I roll my ravioli dough in two different thicknesses. A slightly thinner sheet on the bottom and a slightly thicker sheet on the top so that they hold their shape better, also cooking them under a rolling boil is essential so they don't get tossed around too much in the water.

Lennard__34626

Thanks for the tip! Will try the varying sheet thickness trick. Wouldn't cooking it at a rolling boil cause it to get tossed around more though?