homemade pasta

[Tenacious E]

Got some attachments for the stand mixer and going to start making pasta fresh. I'm fine making standard dough, but thought I would see what the great and mighty HORT has to say on healthy alternatives. My wife wants to make wholegrain or chickpea pasta dough. I'm a hard pass on chickpea dough (although I enjoy them in other formats), but would be willing to try wholegrain. Any other alternative flours you guys have tried to increase fiber content and reduce calories while still having a tasty product?

 

[Mayland]

My only suggestion is to use 100% semolina that comes from durum wheat. That’s the primary difference between pasta and noodles; noodles will use flour (from many different sources), while pasta is made from semolina (from durum).

 

[Aardvark86]

In my experience, 'alternative grains' just make the dough and resulting pasta next to impossible to work with.

 

[ping72]

I would recommend starting with a simple egg noodle recipe to get the hang of what it’s supposed to feel like.

Then eventually advance to the alternative noodles so you have more of a background for what’s going wrong—what needs added, if it’s overworked, etc. That will make troubleshooting much easier for you since using things like chickpeas is going to be a lot more difficult to get correct.

 

[ping72]

In my experience, 'alternative grains' just make the dough and resulting pasta next to impossible to work with.

Hence my note above. These fall apart easily and it’s tough to know why.

 

[Tenacious E]

My only suggestion is to use 100% semolina that comes from durum wheat. That’s the primary difference between pasta and noodles; noodles will use flour (from many different sources), while pasta is made from semolina (from durum).

 

[BanjoSaysWoof]

I use my stand mixer like whoa. The pasta attachment is amazing.

At first, use it as prescribed until you get the hang of it. Then you can decide what flours to use how you need to “doctor” them to get them to work the way you want.

 

[Tenacious E]

My only suggestion is to use 100% semolina that comes from durum wheat. That’s the primary difference between pasta and noodles; noodles will use flour (from many different sources), while pasta is made from semolina (from durum).

I think for the first go around we will something traditional like this, and then go from there once we've gained competency.

 

[Tenacious E]

In my experience, 'alternative grains' just make the dough and resulting pasta next to impossible to work with.

That and I have tried various store bought alternative pastas over the years and I cannot say I enjoyed a single one of them.

 

[desihawk]

Got some attachments for the stand mixer and going to start making pasta fresh. I'm fine making standard dough, but thought I would see what the great and mighty HORT has to say on healthy alternatives. My wife wants to make wholegrain or chickpea pasta dough. I'm a hard pass on chickpea dough (although I enjoy them in other formats), but would be willing to try wholegrain. Any other alternative flours you guys have tried to increase fiber content and reduce calories while still having a tasty product?

i’ll look for an update from you. i take it that you didn’t like the organic spaghetti (itslian import made of durum as recommended by a previous poster) pack from costco?

 

[SolarHawk]

I would recommend starting with a simple egg noodle recipe to get the hang of what it’s supposed to feel like.

Then eventually advance to the alternative noodles so you have more of a background for what’s going wrong—what needs added, if it’s overworked, etc. That will make troubleshooting much easier for you since using things like chickpeas is going to be a lot more difficult to get correct.

Are we rebuilding a carburetor or making pasta? Lol

 

[Tenacious E]

i’ll look for an update from you. i take it that you didn’t like the organic spaghetti (itslian import made of durum as recommended by a previous poster) pack from costco?

It's what we use, but is dried pasta. I've had fresh and it is a different experience. We are doing a big garden this year and I don't have kids' games/activities any more to coach or attend, so this is the year we are going to start making some things from scratch and eat more stuff we grow ourselves.

 

[Rifler]

Hence my note above. These fall apart easily and it’s tough to know why.

Lower levels of gluten I would suspect...