Fresh-made pasta: What's the big deal?

[Polerius]

I have always heard that freshly-made pasta was awesome, and incomparably better than store-bought.

So, with the handy new pasta maker attachment to our Kitchenaid mixer I made some homemade pasta (using one of the recipes in the pasta maker booklet)

After I was done making them and cooking them, I sat down to enjoy a great meal, miles above what I had been used to with the store-bought pasta. Unfortunately, it was very 'meh'. Not bad, but also not great.

Maybe it was the recipe I used, or maybe it was the flour I used ?

What has your experience been with home-made pasta?

[Motorgirl]

Some pasta is better fresh, some is better dried.

I, for one, don't care for fresh fettucine or linguine, but I do like fresh lasagne and ravioli.

Also keep in mind that when you make fresh long pasta like fettucine and linguine, you're supposed to let it dry a while before you cook it, otherwise it has no texture at all. I mention this in case you went from pasta roller to pot and wanted to try it again.

[Polerius]

Also keep in mind that when you make fresh long pasta like fettucine and linguine, you're supposed to let it dry a while before you cook it, otherwise it has no texture at all. I mention this in case you went from pasta roller to pot and wanted to try it again.
How long are you supposed to let it dry before you cook it?

The pasta maker instructions said that I could dry it and use it later, or use it immediately, and I did end up cooking it immediately.

[salinqmind]

I once watched Jamie Oliver on TV whip up some pasta dough, cut it into noodles with his big knife, and decided to try it myself. Looked so easy, but that dough was stiff and hard to work with! I didn't have his muscles, and after a lot of effort, the result was same as OP's - meh. Just OK. It was useful to know how to do it though, in case we were snowed in and had no Ronzoni in the house to go with the sauce.

[Broomstick]

I suspect some of the fresh pasta hype is just that - hype. Yes, arguably it's better but it's not the ecstatic experience some of the TV cooks make it out to be.

Personally, I don't see it as that much better. For me, it's not worth the bother of making my own so I stick to store brand dry pasta in a box. I'm sure I've just proved myself a heathen to the food snobs. Eff 'em.

Bottom line - eat what YOU like. If you prefer dried pasta out of a box you bought at a store go for it. If you want to have another go at making your own, go for it. Don't get too hung up on what other people like.

[Shagnasty]

It isn't just a matter of fresh versus dried either. There are some expensive dried pastas available as well. My ex-wife's family imports and distributed them. Most of them really are good and you would be able to tell the difference if you had them. Some of it is just really fancy shaping and coloring but there is also premium boxed and dried pasta that only takes 90 seconds of boiling to cook. Those are different than the cheap stuff you get in most supermarkets. It wouldn't make a big difference with regular spaghetti sauce but it does if you make a light sauce with things like seafood, herbs, or mushrooms. I don't know any accomplished Italian cooks that regularly make their own fresh pasta but you can buy it in some places in Boston and Providence. I don't think the fresh aspect is the most important thing though.

[pulykamell]

One isn't really "better" than the other. They're different beasts. Fresh pasta is usually made with eggs, while dried pasta is usually not. They taste different. The texture is different. Fresh pasta tends to go better with butter and simple cream sauces. Dried pasta tends to pair better with olive oil, and heavier tomato sauces. I tend to like the flavor and texture of eggy noodles, so I'm a fan of fresh pasta, but it's silly to say one is better than the other.

[salinqmind]

There are small packets of 'fresh' pasta sold at the grocery store in the dairy case, very expensive. But the difference in texture and taste is amazing! They're very nice for a special meal with shrimp, designer mushrooms, asparagus and such. The dried stuff in the box is fine for feeding a mob of hungry schoolkids.

[turner]

I disagree. I think fresh pasta is hands down better than dry. I have found tha dry pasta is very hard to get to true al dente--its either under cooked or a bit mushy. Fresh--at least home made--pasta is almost always firm but not chewy.

I have a few hints that may help. First, I'm a heathen--I add salt to my flour before I mix in the eggs. I know all the "real" cooks say salt the water--not the pasta, but this works for me. I use a little less salt than I would for the same amount of flour in bread. Secondly, I used to make it on my stand mixer. It usually was too wet (if the dies in your pasta cutter don't separate adjacent strands--i.e. if they remain connected, your pasta is probably too wet) and consequently wasn't all that good. I started doing it the old fashioned way, a pile of flour on the board with aforementioned salt, eggs in a well in the middle (3/4 c flour per egg). Beat the eggs and gradually pull in flour from the edges. As it begins to get grainy, add water about a tablespoon at a time until you have a firm (almost hard) but slightly sticky dough. Then knead it for about 5 minutes (if you're not tired at the end, your dough was too soft). Let it rest under a bowl for 20 minutes, then run through your pasta maker, multiple times, folding the dough in thirds before running again, until it is smooth--about 7-10 times. then reduce your pasta machine setting until it is slightly thinner than you want the cooked pasta (the pasta will puff up in water slightly. To cook, boiling water, toss in the pasta in. Wait for it to float, then leave it in for about 2 more minutes, stirring to make sure all pasta is cooked evenly (when it floats, its NOT done--again in my opinion)

For a sauce, I roast about 4 big cloves of garlic in foil (cloves, a bit of olive oil wrapped in foill and tossed in my toaster over at 350 for about 15-20 minutes), let them cool then squish them into a paste. Put a couple of pats of butter in a pan, melt, add about a cup and a half of half and half, stir in the garlic paste and whisk. Then this comes to a simmer reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 5 minutes whisking every now and then. Then whisk in a handful of parmesean, toss the cooked pasta into the sauce--AMAZING.

[TriPolar]

Fresh pasta is definitely better tasting and has a better texture. I don't know how anybody can try both and not notice the difference.

[Sattua]

I do think that the difference is more apparent when you use a light sauce. If you're dousing the pasta in a heavy marinara or alfredo sauce, then you aren't going to notice it as much as you will with just some garlic and olive oil.

I do think that fresh pasta needs to dry for at least a few hours before you cook it. At least, that's how I've always done it.

[smithsb]

Meh - I do both depending on prep time for the entire meal. Pasta is just the carrier for the other tastes which overwhelm IMHO the inate pasta flavor. It's more getting the texture right and the size and shape in tune with whatever you're serving with it. The sauces, meats, seafood, cheeses, veggies all seem more "tasteworthy" regarding the meal.

Kinda like grits, pancakes, mashed potatoes, and other starches that need something added to them (red-eye gravy, yum). I do not include wall-paper paste (poi) in the starch group as nothing helps there (my wife's from Hawaii and would kill me if she followed my posts).

[Raguleader]

Meh - I do both depending on prep time for the entire meal. Pasta is just the carrier for the other tastes which overwhelm IMHO the inate pasta flavor. It's more getting the texture right and the size and shape in tune with whatever you're serving with it. The sauces, meats, seafood, cheeses, veggies all seem more "tasteworthy" regarding the meal.

Kinda like grits, pancakes, mashed potatoes, and other starches that need something added to them (red-eye gravy, yum). I do not include wall-paper paste (poi) in the starch group as nothing helps there (my wife's from Hawaii and would kill me if she followed my posts).

Something you might try sometime, when you make pasta, is instead of using a really bold flavored sauce with a cheese or tomato base, just use some olive oil and some seasoning. I do that every once in a rare while when i want a change of pace.

[Queen Tonya]

We experimented with making our own for a few months. Different flours, different recipes and shapes, letting it dry first or not, kneading by hand or not, at the end the only time we ever make pasta is if we're making a huge sheet and cutting by hand for ravioli. Nothing else we did made a noticeable difference, regardless of how we served it.

So I'm glad we played around with it, and I'm even more glad I don't have to make it fresh.

[Labrador Deceiver]

My favorite quote (from an Italian chef):

"Fresh pasta is for tourists."

[Raguleader]

My favorite quote (from an Italian chef):

"Fresh pasta is for tourists."

Maybe true, but let's face it, sometimes the fun in making your own food from scratch isn't that it's better, it's that you made it from scratch. Like, if you had to fend for yourself in the wilderness, you could catch and kill whatever animal we make pasta from, and prepare yourself a delicious Fettuccine Alfredo so you won't starve.

[smithsb]

Something you might try sometime, when you make pasta, is instead of using a really bold flavored sauce with a cheese or tomato base, just use some olive oil and some seasoning. I do that every once in a rare while when i want a change of pace.

Aglio, olio, peperoncino is my "go to" snack or quicky meal staple. Sometimes just butter and some grated romano or parmesian is fine. Just the pasta type doesn't really make a big difference.

[Broomstick]

Fresh pasta is definitely better tasting and has a better texture. I don't know how anybody can try both and not notice the difference.
I don't think it's a matter of not noticing the difference, it's a matter of having a different preference than you do. Someone else might prefer the texture of dried pasta, for example.

It's like saying cucumbers are better than pickles and you don't see how anyone can try both and not notice the difference. Of course there's a difference, it's just that a pickle-lover might prefer pickles to fresh cucumbers.

[pulykamell]

My favorite quote (from an Italian chef):

"Fresh pasta is for tourists."

It's not. It's a different flavor (eggs!!!) and different texture than dried. Like I said above, one is not better than another. They are different foods. I like both, although a fresh pasta in a very simple sauce (hell, just butter and some cheese, for instance) is sublime.

[MrDibble]

Qick question, Polerius - how long did you cook it for? IMO, anything more than 1 minute for fresh pasta is overkill.

[ralph124c]

Frankly, I prefer dry pasta over fresh. It is a lot of effort to make, and i don't find it anything special.
Years ago, I bought a pasta machine at a yard sale-never used. Now it sits in my basement..never used!
There must be a reason for this-you see these machines at yard sales all the time.

[Quercus]

Qick question, Polerius - how long did you cook it for? IMO, anything more than 1 minute for fresh pasta is overkill.
Yeah, this was my thought, too. If you can't tell the difference in texture, you may have overcooked the fresh stuff -- most people don't realize it cooks completely differently than dried, literally only a minute or two for fresh pasta.

[Labrador Deceiver]

It's not. It's a different flavor (eggs!!!) and different texture than dried. Like I said above, one is not better than another. They are different foods. I like both, although a fresh pasta in a very simple sauce (hell, just butter and some cheese, for instance) is sublime.

Of course they're different foods, and fresh pasta is sublime in the right dish. However, the vast majority of non-stuffed pasta dishes are better with dried pasta. Too many people have a knee-jerk "fresh pasta is always better" reaction that drives me up the wall.

[pulykamell]

Of course they're different foods, and fresh pasta is sublime in the right dish. However, the vast majority of non-stuffed pasta dishes are better with dried pasta. Too many people have a knee-jerk "fresh pasta is always better" reaction that drives me up the wall.

Exactly. Which is what I said in my first post. It just seemed to me that you had the reverse opinion, that by quoting a Real Italian Chef saying fresh pasta is for "tourists" you were implying that real Italians eat dry pasta. Tell that to the folks of the Emilia-Romagna or Piedmont region of Italy. Fresh pasta tends to be more popular with Northern Italian cooking. Dry pasta tends to be more popular with Southern Italian cooking (which is what most Americans are used to.) I'm guessing the Italian chef you heard that comment from hails from the south of Italy.

[aruvqan]

Of course they're different foods, and fresh pasta is sublime in the right dish. However, the vast majority of non-stuffed pasta dishes are better with dried pasta. Too many people have a knee-jerk "fresh pasta is always better" reaction that drives me up the wall.

I have to agree, tortellini or ravioli made fresh is amazing, but 'long noodles' as my goddaughter calls spaghetti and linguini is better dried. I find that capellini/angel hair nests are good fresh or dried, as long as the cooking time and saucing are proper.

[pulykamell]

I have to agree, tortellini or ravioli made fresh is amazing, but 'long noodles' as my goddaughter calls spaghetti and linguini is better dried. I find that capellini/angel hair nests are good fresh or dried, as long as the cooking time and saucing are proper.

I think it depends on what you're topping it with. If I'm getting a simple sauce with just butter and shaved truffles (or even just shaved cheese), fresh noodles win out. If I'm eating something with a heavy "Sunday gravy" type of sauce, dried pasta wins out. It completely depends on the preparation, and I wouldn't at all say that the "vast majority" of non-stuffed pasta dishes are better with dried pasta. It depends on what kind of non-stuffed pasta dishes you're used to.

[Frylock]

My favorite quote (from an Italian chef):

"Fresh pasta is for tourists."

Heh.

I've got this cookbook, I forget which group wrote it, but they take some kind of quasi(?)-scientific approach to some cuisine questions. They said that their taste tests reveal a general preference for dried pasta, not fresh. The fresh stuff, they said, seemed to come out mushy and flavorless (IIRC).

[pulykamell]

Here's the apparent source (http://books.google.com/books?id=OFwuW3qrC7UC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=marenzi's+san+francisco+restaurant&source=bl&ots=ywDHhu0m-P&sig=AcD5SPXJeqpxNjQ9wJ3TlLbhjKc&hl=en&ei=9sA9TcKVJ8HcgQfBtuXICA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=marenzi's%20san%20francisco%20restaurant&f=false) of the "pasta is for tourists" quote. I bet dollars to donuts that chef comes from a Southern Italian tradition.

[Kinthalis]

I love fresh pasta. It's expensive so I reserve it for special occasions, but they truly bring up a notch any dish that features it.

This does reminds me, however, of how in almost all chef shows, like Ramsey's Hell's kitchen, if ANYONE of the contestants dares to make a pasta dish without fresh pasta they've made, they'll get yelled at 9 times out of 10, but back at the restaurant, you can clearly see them serving dry pasta to customers.

[lieu]

Three of us made it once years ago and it was a bit of a pain, what with the mixing and slicing and laying out on a rack and waiting for it to dry. It was, however, by and far the most absolutely delicious pasta I've ever had in my life.

Sadly, those gorgeous twins and the receipe are now all very much in the past.

[Puff]

I also have recently aquired the attachments to my KitchenAid, but had a completely different experience using the same recipe in the booklet. I found it easier to make than I expected and better tasting than any dried pasta I have ever had - but as noted earlier by another poster, I do like the eggy taste so maybe it's that? I also froze some of my 1st batch and cooked from frozen later which was equally delicious.

A member of my family once said to me that dried pasta is a platform to highlight a delicious sauce, and fresh pasta is the highlight itself and so deserving of a simple sauce to compliment, not drown. So creamy, tomatoey sauces go with dried pasta, simple sauces like Aglio Olio Pepperoncino go with fresh.

I never gave this any weight until recently, but it makes perfect sense now.

[Labrador Deceiver]

that real I'm guessing the Italian chef you heard that comment from hails from the south of Italy.

I wasn't implying that Italians only eat dried, I'm implying that pasta fresca was put on a ton of menus in the 70s and 80s, and was the high-end Italian equivalent of Caribbean rum drinks. There's nothing wrong with it per se, it's was (and sometimes still is) way over utilized. What tradition Marenzi was born to is largely irrelevant.

[pulykamell]

I wasn't implying that Italians only eat dried, I'm implying that pasta fresca was put on a ton of menus in the 70s and 80s, and was the high-end Italian equivalent of Caribbean rum drinks. There's nothing wrong with it per se, it's was (and sometimes still is) way over utilized. What tradition Marenzi was born to is largely irrelevant.

Re-read my first post on the subject, where I defend both dried and fresh pasta. Marenzi's tradition is relevant in the sense that your post implied (to me, at any rate) in quoting somebody as an Italian chef, and therefore some sort of authority, that fresh pasta is somehow only something that "tourists" eat, when it is, in fact, not at all the case. It is an important part of the Northern Italian tradition. It is quite possible that Marenzi called it "tourist" pasta because he comes from a region of Italy where dried pasta is the dominant tradition.

[BleizDu]

I'm one of those people who like fresh pasta better than dried. It's expensive so we never buy some, and when I realize I could make it myself, it was too much of a bother to make enough by hand so I only make some once. It was soooo good though.
And just today we bought one of those simple manual pasta making machine, like we had seen in a friend's house, so I predict some tasty recipes being done this week. :)

We can only buy the cheapest dry pasta kinds, since we're really hurting for money these last weeks, so it's cheaper to buy the ingredients and make pasta myself, and I know it'll taste (for us anyway) way better.

And I agree that with fresh pasta, we don't drench them in heavy sauce, whereas with dried pasta, even more so the cheap kind, I'll often cook them not in water but in homemade seasonned tomato sauce, or in homemade or store bought beef broth, to give them some taste.

[Labrador Deceiver]

Re-read my first post on the subject, where I defend both dried and fresh pasta. Marenzi's tradition is relevant in the sense that your post implied (to me, at any rate) in quoting somebody as an Italian chef, and therefore some sort of authority, that fresh pasta is somehow only something that "tourists" eat, when it is, in fact, not at all the case. It is an important part of the Northern Italian tradition. It is quite possible that Marenzi called it "tourist" pasta because he comes from a region of Italy where dried pasta is the dominant tradition.

I've already acknowledged that Italians eat fresh pasta. I've always known that to be the case, and I have first hand experience, both in Italy and in professional kitchens, of what Italians eat. My point, which I've already clarified, is that it was an extremely trendy dish for a long time, and it's importance in Italian cuisine was, and continues to be, way overstated.

I never accused you of looking down on dried pasta, so I'm not sure what that part means.

ETA: Marenzi certainly was an authority on Italian food, especially as it pertained to both fresh and dry pasta. He forgot more than most chefs will ever know on the subject.

[devilsknew]

I can pretty much definitively say that fresh, toothsome, thicker, Pasta/Egg Noodles in the German and Eastern European tradition are much much better than the thin and wimpy, wavy, flaccid dried and packaged, commercial, egg noodles. These kinds of homemade noodles are intrinsic to a good Amish or Midwest style Chicken and Noodles and frankly necessary to the development of the starchieness, viscosity, and thickness of a sauce/soup- Dried egg noodles are inferior in every way for this process (even the 'homemade' dried, specialty, Amish egg noodles). The thing is that you don't need a pasta maker to make these primal noodles and they needn't be fancy, simply roll your pasta dough to a decent eighth to a quarter inch toothsomeness and fold and cut with a knife or make squares similar to the Italian Rag pasta or paparadelle.

[pulykamell]

I never accused you of looking down on dried pasta, so I'm not sure what that part means.


I don't think we disagree, but your first post in this thread does not come across as your follow-up posts do. I can't read it in any other way that it sounding like a put-down of fresh pasta, and something that No Real Italian (TM) would eat. Yes, you've clarified since. That's not at all how the initial post came across, at least to me.

[Labrador Deceiver]

I don't think we disagree, but your first post in this thread does not come across as your follow-up posts do. I can't read it in any other way that it sounding like a put-down of fresh pasta, and something that No Real Italian (TM) would eat. Yes, you've clarified since. That's not at all how the initial post came across, at least to me.

It is a bit of a put-down, in that it's meant to knock fresh pasta off of the pedestal upon which many people have placed it. Admittedly, it probably doesn't come across as well in this context as it did between two chefs who both understood the importance and origins of Italian pasta.

[Mangetout]

One isn't really "better" than the other. They're different beasts.

This. One is only better than the other if you like it. I like it just because it's different. I like variety, so it's the increase in variety that's 'better', not necessarily any singular foodstuff.