I do like freshly made pasta, but I do not believe it is always the best way to go. Whether cooking at home or in a restaurant kitchen, there are times when dry pasta works better in the recipe. Do you find this to be true?
3 Likes
Absolutely.
If you’re doing something like carbonara, cacio e pepe, or similar, I find dried pasta much easier to work with. Those dishes usually involve under-cooking your pasta and then finishing it in the sauce itself, using pasta water to add free starch to help emulsification of the fat and thickening it. Dry pasta has a much more flexible time window where the pasta will be cooked enough that it can finish in the sauce.
Fresh pasta, depending on the type, can take only a minute or 3 to cook. That means you have to REALLY get the timing right as to when to pull it from the initial boil and how long it can sit in the sauce before turning to gloppy, overdone mess.
I find fresh pasta is the thing when, for instance, I have some really NICE cheese (say, an aged manchego w/ truffle). Make fresh pasta. Toss with butter or olive oil in a warm metal bowl. The water clinging to the noodles will be sufficient to make a nice slick coating. Then shave on cheese to your liking.
Basically, if I can cook the pasta almost to done before dressing it, it’s good for fresh. If I have to consider doneness in stages, dry is easier.
YMMV
7 Likes
Of course it’s true. As lectroid says, some recipes won’t work with fresh pasta. Any dish that’s saltado in padella requires dry semolina pasta. You can’t get the delightful texture of al dente dry semolina pasta with fresh egg noodles.
I like high-quality dried pasta better than fresh pasta. More al dente, richer grain flavor.
I disagree. Although dried pasta is better in some dishes, as in linguine vongole where the pasta picks up flavor from cooking in the sauce, more subtle dishes such as pasta with artichokes, are better with fresh pasta such as the pasta I made with nettles from the backyard.
5 Likes
We are talking apples and oranges. Fresh and dried, commercial pasta are two different animals, to mix metaphors.
True. I like some animals (octopuses) better than others (snakes).
The flavor is really down to the raw ingredients and any processing. Cheap dried pasta can taste like nothing. Really great dried pasta can be sublime.
I make fresh pasta w the following formula:
200g 00 pasta flour (AP will do in a pinch)
100g semolina (Bobs red mill because everyone can find that. )
3 large eggs (~50g ea)
1 generous pinch of salt.
That gives you a rough hydration of about 50%, easy enough for hand kneading and not so stiff you’ll break your pasta roller.
Mix ingredients, knead by hand ~10 min. Let rest at least 30 min. Overnight is fine. Portion into 4 servings and roll out/shape/cut to your liking.
2 Likes
Re: dry pasta
Alex - French Guy Cooking did a recent series investigating (and attempting to make his own) semolina + water dry pasta.
Spoiler: it’s not easy. At all.