how do you make pasta ?

Question

I dunno

Answer 1

Semolina flour - add water to a thick paste - roll out thin - and leave it until it is nearly dry - cut it into strips for spagetti or leave it to conpletely dry for lasagne sheets. Easier to buy it really, mine always seems to have lumpy bits in it.

Answer 2

from scratch? (believe me - if you do it right it's loads better than anything you can buy).
You can get special equipment for making pasta, but really all you need is flour and water, and maybe an egg to make it a bit richer, and a rolling pin.

Mix it all together intil you have a dough, roll it out either with a pasta machine, or just a rolling pin. Keep rolling it out lots of times, then start to roll it thinner and thinner until you've got the kind of thickness you want. Cut it up into spaghetti, or whatever shapes you like, and then cook as normal pasta - there's no need to dry it, and it's much nicer fresh anyway. Otherwise what was the point of making it??
Served with home-made pesto, it's one of the most fantastic foods on earth!

Answer 3

Pasta. Boil the water till it bubbles and then add the pasta in slowly and add salt. Cook for about ten minutes and then strain.You can add salt and butter only if you wish or make a sauce of your own.
Sauce.....Fry some garlic (I usually put three of four chopped up in small pieces as I love garlic) cook till slightly brown / Add finely chopped onion . Cook till opaque and then add half a kg of fresh tomatoes or a tin of Italian tomatoes and cook on a low gas until the tomatoes are in a pulp. Add a tablespoon of tomato puree...some mushrooms, sliced capsicum and peas if you want a vegetarian sauce otherwise cook the sauce up to adding the mushrooms and substitute minced lamb and add peas. The sauce is ready when oil floats to the top. Strain the pasta and put the hot sauce on top of the pasta and add grated cheese....cheddar but parmisan is more authentic and tastes a lot better. There are many different sauces

Answer 4

First you find a pasta tree or bush. You wait for the pasta to grow, then you pick it and dry it in the sun. Because it hangs from the branches it tends to be long and stringy, although with some varieties it can grow like sheets. Some F1 hybrids have been developed in Italy which produce pasta in the shape of twirls or shells however these tend to be expensive as the seed from the hybrid plants can not be used to propogate new seedlings for the next years crop.

I quote from a 1957 BBC programme -

The BBC has received a mixed reaction to a documentary broadcast about spaghetti crops in Switzerland.
The Panorama programme, narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest.

It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry.

Answer 5

You are making me hungry. I think they grind up something called durum wheat and mix it with water and maybe something else to make durum wheat semolina. Then they stir it about and it forms a kind of thick paste which they can push through holes to make pasta shapes or roll into sheets to make lasagne. I know that some fresh pasta has egg in it and comes to you in a soft form to cook. Other pasta is dried and comes to you hard in bags. I love pasta. Wholemeal is good for a hearty meal.

Answer 6

Fresh pasta dough recipe:
Ingredients

140g/5oz plain flour or Italian '00' flour
2 medium eggs, 1 whole and 1 yolk (preferably organic)

Method

1. Place the flour in a food processor and pulse it. Add the whole egg and egg yolk and keep whizzing until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (it shouldn't be dusty, nor should it be a big, gooey ball). This takes 2-3 minutes.
2. Tip out the dough and knead to form into a ball shape. Knead it briskly for 1 minute, it should be quite stiff and hard to knead. Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in a cool place for 1 hour before using.
3. Now cut the dough into 2 pieces. For each piece, flatten with a rolling pin to about 5mm/¼ in) thickness. Fold over the dough and pass it through the pasta machine at its widest setting, refolding and rolling 7 times (not changing the setting) until you have a rectangular shape 7.5x18cm/3x7 in. It is important to work the dough until it is nice and shiny, as this gives it the "al dente" texture. Repeat with the second piece of dough.
4. Now you are ready to roll out. Start with the pasta machine at its widest setting, pass the dough through the rollers. Do not fold but repeat this process, decreasing the roller setting down grade by grade with each pass. For most uses, I take the pasta down to the penultimate setting - especially for ravioli, as you are sandwiching two layers together when it is folded. Use straight away to make the ravioli.

Helpful hints:
- Always cover sitting dough with cling film or a damp tea towel to prevent it drying out.
- Do not add oil to the cooking water. It is a fallacy that it prevents sticking and is therefore a complete waste of oil.
- Do not dredge the pasta in flour to prevent sticking, as the flour turns to glue when cooked and, ironically, causes the pasta to stick together (using semolina flour from Italian delis instead will help).


And here is a recipe for basic marinara sauce (would work for vegans too):
Marinara Sauce

1/4 cup of olive oil
4 cloves of garlic sliced in half
1 35oz can of imported Italian tomatoes
3 basil leaves, washed, patted dry and chopped
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
salt & pepper to taste

1. Place garlic and olive oil in large sauce pan.

2. Turn heat to medium and cook until garlic is soft and lightly browned.

3. Crush the tomatoes and add with their juices.

4. Fill empty tomato can 1/4 of the way with water and pour in with tomatoes.

5. Add basil, oregano, salt and pepper.

6. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and cook until thickened approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

Answer 7

Put a pot of salted water on the element. Put it on high and wait until it boils. Once it is boiling, add noodles and put it on medium. Next, wait until the noodles are soft while stirring occasionaly so the noodles dont stick. Drain the noodles in a strainer and put it back in the pot. If you have a sauce already, add it and heat on low for a bit. If not, what I like to do is add milk and butter and garlic and a bit of grated cheese. Heat on low AND SCARF IT DOWN YUM!

Answer 8

Pasta is easy to make.
First boil the water.
w8 for 5 minutes and put the pasta in there
Then put it in a strainer
put it a big bowl
add whatever you want to it but nothing raw,put chicken,meatballs whatever you want
And enjoy:)

Answer 9

put a bunch of water in a pot, boil it (hot setting), place in pasta (don't drop, water on you not good), stir every once in a while so it doesn't stick, cook about 8 minutes (approximately-read bag or box), drain (in strainer, a container with lots of holes at bottom to remove water), add whatever you like as sauce (sometimes just plain butter is good, but diferent sauces or cheeses are good also)

Answer 10

From scratch? There are a lot of good sites, like epicurious.com to help, and help with the rolling and cutting.

It's really fun if you have a pasta maker attachment to your mixer!
And someplace to dry it.