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TipIf you’re in the market for a pasta rolling machine, you’ll
quickly see you can spend anywhere from $30 for a small
hand-cranked machine (like the one shown on the facing
page) to $1,500 for a motorized restaurant-grade machine,
with plenty of models and prices for both kinds in between.
Which to choose?
Call us old-fashioned, but we love the hand-cranked
kind. Making pasta this way feels to us as it should: rustic
and homey. Because the ravioli recipe on p. 61 makes a
small amount, a hand-cranked model will easily get the job
done. The advantage, aside from a lower price, is that you
control the speed of the rollers. Hand-cranked models are
smaller than most motorized models, too, making them
easy to store. On the downside, you have only two hands,
which can make it challenging to handle the pasta sheet
while also cranking the machine.
Although the noise of a motorized model can be
obnoxious, the automatic rolling lets you use both hands
for feeding and catching the pasta sheet. It’s a good choice
if you’re making large amounts of pasta.
eQUipMeNTroll on: musings on pasta machines
Why should i save the pasta
cooking water?
If you’re making the pasta carbonara on p. 58, the
recipe calls for reserving a cup of the pasta cook-
ing water. The water contains starch, which can help
thicken sauce. Restaurant chefs often slightly un-
dercook pasta in boiling water and then finish cook-
ing it right in the sauce over high heat with some of
the pasta water, all while shaking the pan vigorously.
The shaking releases even more starch from
the surface of the pasta and helps to
further thicken the sauce. And if
the pasta absorbs so much of
the sauce that it seems dry,
another splash of the cooking
water is the perfect fix.
To help you remember to
save the water, put a mea-
suring cup in your colander.
It will act as a visual cue to
scoop out and reserve some of
the pasta cooking water before
you drain it.
iNGreDieNTIt’s a simple question with a complicated
answer.
Let’s start with cornmeal, which is
ground dried corn. It can be fine, medium,or coarse in texture and white, yellow,
or blue in color.
Polenta is a type of cornmeal and so are
grits. To confuse matters more, both of
those terms also refer to a finished dish.
But there are a few key differences:
Grits are traditionally made from dent
corn, a softer corn variety with a dent in
the top of each kernel (hence its name).
Polenta is typically made from flint
corn, a much harder variety than dent
corn. Because it comes from harder corn,
its granules retain their shape even after
long cooking, giving polenta (the dish) a
coarser texture and more rustic mouth-
feel than grits.
That said, some producers don’t label
or even make their cornmeal products
according to these definitions. When we
buy it for recipes like the Herbed ricotta
polenta on p. 66, we look for Bob’s Red
Mill’s “Corn Grits Also Known As Polenta,”
which have wonderful texture and flavor
(if a somewhat confusing label). Alpina
Savoie “Polenta Tradition/Medium” is
another excellent choice.
Avoid “instant” or “quick cooking”
polenta, which won’t have the deep corn
flavor and toothsome texture you want.What exactly is polenta?
Cornmeal Grits Polenta