Homemade pasta - need some help

All -

Last night I decided to make ravioli from scratch. I have done this before and had good success, however I could not remember what recipe I used for the dough. This particular time I had issues with the end product and would like some critiquing on my process and where it went wrong.

After reading through the 5 Italian cookbooks I have and realizing that there is no one correct recipe I found one that would work (3 L Eggs, and 2C unbleached all purpose flour). I made the well, dropped the eggs in and kneaded together using my fingers. After about 5-6 minutes I noticed that it was extremely dry and was not picking up all the flour, so I decided to add another egg yolk (not full egg, just the yolk). I continued to knead this by hand for about another 7 minutes then put in a bowl and covered with a wet towel to rest for about 15-20 minutes.

Once done resting I broke off small pieces and put through the pasta machine from a 1 down to the thinnest 7.

Next I took them and laid out on the cutting board (dusted with flour) and brushed with egg white. Finally I plopped little pieces of the filling (a roasted butternut squash/ricotta/sauteed shallots/olive oil infused with thyme mixture) and cut them to size.

Now this is where the issue presented itself, when trying to pinch the sides together, they would not come together. The dough would not meld together at all. Does that make sense?

Upon tasting it appeared to be very ... thick/strong.

So we tossed in the freezer for a couple minutes (this might have been a mistake) thinking it might help them come together a bit and then put into a pot of light simmering salted water. Let them come to a float and then served.

It tasted overly doughy and could not be cut with a fork. We had to use a knife to cut the dough!

So as I like to do with most of my cooking I am trying to figure out how to make it better the next time and where I went wrong. My theory is it might have to do with the extra yolk or not sitting or kneading long enough.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

I think the issue is the flour you are using. You need to use flour with a lower protien content, like semolina or "OO".

Adding more eggs will make it tougher, too I think, as they are so high in protien as well.

Sometimes I add some olive oil to the eggs in the well, which helps to sofen things up. It should stick together relatively quickly when you go to bind the edges together, I don't think any amount of resting longer will help that.

Overall, I think you had way too much protien and not much fat! I hope this helps.

It also sounds like you are over kneading your pasta. This isn't clay that you're making- you knead enough to get it to come together and hold in a ball, and that's it. By the way, you can also add a touch of water or as mentioned above, olive oil, to help the pasta have more liquid. I tend not to use straight semolina in making my pastas at home, but a mix of regular plain old flour and a cup or so of semolina.

The science behind this is that as you knead flour you turn the proteins into gluten. When you knead dough the proteins a stretched out and this is what ultimately makes gluten- we like gluten because it firms things up (forgive me those who can't do gluten). The problem is that if you continue to knead dough you turn more and more of that protein into gluten and you get this gummy, firm, pastey thing.

jpschust wrote:It also sounds like you are over kneading your pasta. This isn't clay that you're making- you knead enough to get it to come together and hold in a ball, and that's it.

Respectfully, I have to vehemently disagree here. The kneading once you've gotten that ball is critical for good bite. If you just do enough for it to become uniform and hold together, you get mush (with the caveat that what you consider mush and what I consider mush may be two different things). Once I've got that cohesive lump, I knead for ten minutes. Bugialli does 5-6. Biba and Marcella do 8. Batali and the Tornabenes do ten. But all agree on one point -- that extra kneading after you've got a cohesive mass and have cleaned your board is precisely the key to good pasta. Unless the OP's time estimates are waaaaaay off, I'd even consider that a little short.

messycook wrote:I think the issue is the flour you are using. You need to use flour with a lower protien content, like semolina or "OO".

I also don't believe the flour is the issue. Marcella's a huge fan of plain old all-purpose unbleached, and so am I.

I'm a little confused by the egg whites for sealing. You shouldn't need to use anything to seal ravioli other than a little pressure. Which brings me to my best guess for the culprit.

Not enough eggs. The problem with following recipes for pasta is that flour varies, eggs vary -- even the humidity can have a significant effect on your flour/egg ratio. It's really a matter of getting a feel for how much is appropriate. And I think you're better off starting wet and adding flour than the other way around, as you did. I think a touch of olive oil (a touch!) is good when you're sealing something, like ravioli, but it certainly isn't necessary. And there's absolutely no problem whatsoever going heavy on the yolks. The fresh pastas of Piedmont, I believe, are often done almost entirely with yolks. In any case, I believe that would explain all three issues -- the overly tough nature of the pasta, the fact that you needed a binder to seal it, and the "doughy" flavor (without enough egg, I'm guessing you ended up with a good measure of what was essentialy waterlogged flour).

That's my bet.

Oh, and P.S.... pasta machines vary, of course, and I don't know what yours is like, but generally speaking, the last setting is way too thin for anything. Usually you'd want to stop a notch or possibly even two short of the thinnest setting for ravioli.

Dom,

I think the reason people think they need water or oil to close the ravioli is due to too much dry flour left on the surface. If you have pasta straight out of a pasta roller, there is lots of moist (not dry) surface area to seal with. If they rolled the dough out on an over-floured surface, then the dusty dry surfaces cannot meld together.

I was watching Tampopo the other day. The noodle expert made his noodle dough the day before using soda water from some province. He also kneaded his noodle dough three times with generous rests in between. I am quite tempted to give it a try.

Regards,