We eat a lot of Thai food at our house (my wife is Thai - go figure).

Just for fun we thought we would aquire a Philips pasta maker given the link between pasta and Asian noodles and the fact that we control what does and does not go into the mix.

First attempt at noodles was an unmitigated disaster with wife harassing me to take the instructions out of the plastic and at least give them a cursory glance....attempt two was even worse so I buckled to wife's wishes and read the destructions.

Attempt three (and subsequent attempts now that I am an informed informed user) hit the spot. We have made numerous pasta and noodles over the last month and if you have any idea how fussy the Thai are about food, the machine has turned out to be a raging success..........as long as you follow the instructions!

Regards,

George

So the lesson here is, always follow your wife's instructions. 

Looks good to me, I want one!

 

So the lesson here is, always follow your wife's instructions. 

Yes, unless of course they are directions to any given location..........

We got the attachment for our Kitchen Aid and that works pretty well. And we use variations on simple pasta dough, generally with half and half unbleached and durum flours. And they come out fine through the simple sheet or spaghetti maker and similarly through the extrusion tool for more complex types (with holes in them).

But we have to do a bit of pre-prep on the dough first to make sure it's ready for action.

Or, like last night, I just let Mrs CE make gnocchi...Mmmm!

Deleted post, inadvertently posted before finishing it properly......

Edited January 18, 201610 yr by glakey

The pasta/noodle machine is about the only food type device we have that is not made by KitchedAid. I gave the KitchenAid pasta set to my sister as "I" could not get pasta right even after reading the instructions and I mean actually reading them.........it is my lack of foodie type skills, not the equipment!

Regards,

George

The pasta/noodle machine is about the only food type device we have that is not made by KitchedAid. I gave the KitchenAid pasta set to my sister as "I" could not get pasta right even after reading the instructions and I mean actually reading them.........it is my lack of foodie type skills, not the equipment!

Regards,

George

Ah! Grasshopper - the patience of the elephant is great, but not endless. It takes a little bit of time to master the pasta, but then the benefits are great.

 

Often problem occurs when the dough is not rested enough before feeding it into the machine for a second time. With the spaghetti (fettucini, sheets, etc) then simply running it through the rollers until it becomes smooth is enough. And you can then create whatever string spaghetti you like. With the other stuff, we found that doing the initial mix (we used the Kitchen Aid with a dough hook) gave you a nice elastic dough, but it needed to rest for a while before chucking it into the extruder. And you have to give it a bit of a hand knead before we did that. Then it came out fine.

 

The other problems occur when you haven't got enough loose flour lying around on all surfaces.

 

But these are standard problems to us, as we've been making it for years (me for a few, Mrs CE since birth - the family is from Abruzzo). It's just faster and more consistent when you use the machine(s). 

.... and don't forget folks,

that's what you get folks,

for making gnocchi

 

Ah! Grasshopper - the patience of the elephant is great, but not endless. It takes a little bit of time to master the pasta, but then the benefits are great.

 

Often problem occurs when the dough is not rested enough before feeding it into the machine for a second time. With the spaghetti (fettucini, sheets, etc) then simply running it through the rollers until it becomes smooth is enough. And you can then create whatever string spaghetti you like. With the other stuff, we found that doing the initial mix (we used the Kitchen Aid with a dough hook) gave you a nice elastic dough, but it needed to rest for a while before chucking it into the extruder. And you have to give it a bit of a hand knead before we did that. Then it came out fine.

 

The other problems occur when you haven't got enough loose flour lying around on all surfaces.

 

But these are standard problems to us, as we've been making it for years (me for a few, Mrs CE since birth - the family is from Abruzzo). It's just faster and more consistent when you use the machine(s).

I checked with mates and my sister (my wife and I give KitchenAid appliances to close friends for house warmings/special occasions etc) and all successfully manage to produce great pasta - it is definitely me!

I grew up in a Housing Commission area with a high percentage of "new Australians" many of them of Italian heritage - to this day, the sight / smell of freshly cooked pasta transports me back to a simpler and incredibly happy period of my adolescent years!