Basta With Bad Factory Pasta! Use the La Monferrina IDEA For Superior Dried Pasta!

   Fresh vs. Factory                                                                                              
So, when we talk about fresh pasta, we’re usually referring to noodles made with egg and flour.  If your foodie friends go around bragging about how they made fresh pasta last night, this is the type of pasta they made.  It has a lighter texture thanks to the denaturing of protein and trapping of air that happens when the whites of the eggs are agitated.  It also is more delicate, dissolving easily in the mouth, and is immensely absorptive, making it especially suitable for butter or cream-based sauces.  Because of its delicacy, it cooks in about half the time of dried pasta. This is not the pasta you’ll be using for oil and vegetable-based sauces though, so let’s focus on that kind, called “factory-made macaroni” pasta.  Most of the familiar pasta shapes are this kind: spaghetti, penne, conchiglie, rigatone, fusilli, etc.  Semolina – made from coarse, golden durum wheat – is the delicious type of flour it’s made from, combined with water.  The dough is extruded through a die in order to create the desired shape, and the noodles are then dried before being packaged.   So what constitutes good factory pasta versus bad factory pasta?  A few factors.  The quality of the flour (semolina being the most desirable), the quality of the water you use, and most importantly, how fast the pasta is pushed through the die.  Large-volume factories use Teflon dies to speed the process up and keep the pasta from sticking as it is pushed through the die, but this leaves the pasta without a rough texture to “grip” the sauce.  The good stuff is made of thoroughly kneaded dough and is extruded through bronze dies, which give the noodles much more texture, density, and chewiness.    Mixing It Up With La Monferrina's IDEA                                                            
With your 20+ quart commercial mixer and La Monferrina’s IDEA pasta extruder attachment for the #12 power hub, you can easily prep superior factory noodles in a flash without having to devote more than one person to the extrusion process! La Monferrina has been producing pasta machines since the 30s, so they understand the potential long-lived commercial mixers like Hobart’s Classic line represent. To capitalize on the versatility of the #12 attachment hub, they produce the IDEA, a combination sheeter and extruder that can even be used to make stuffed pasta like ravioli! The extruder consists of a sturdy stainless steel body, angled hopper, a paddle unit to homogenize the dough, an aluminum auger to conduct the dough to the die, 4 high-quality bronze dies (spaghetti, linguini, fusilli, and caserecci), and an attachable cutting knife to easily cut the pasta at the die head. Sporting a production speed of 10 – 29 lbs per hour, the extruder is optimally suited for 2 – 3 hour runs. As you can see, that’s a respectable amount of pasta which will generously feed up to 325 people, making it perfect for light or medium-volume kitchens! Swapping out dies is a breeze, so you don’t need to disassemble the entire attachment to change up shapes.  When you do need to disassemble it, the process couldn’t be simpler, expediting clean-up.  Be sure to check with us for many, many more dies available for the attachment!

Emilio from Pastabiz demonstrates how to extrude pasta using the IDEA extruder.

Just 2 reminders about your dough:

• Remember to use warm or lukewarm water, as this helps develop gluten in the flour.
• It should be dry by the time you finish it in your mixer.  Dry, crumbly dough, is ideal for passing through the extruder.

And a few things to remember when you’re using the attachment: 1. The die will produce rougher pasta at first because it is still heating up. Unless you want a rougher texture, cut the first bit of pasta and put the dough back in the hopper. 2. Don’t fill the paddle chamber to the brim with dough.  This ensures the pressure on the dough won’t cause it to stick while extruding. 3. After you’re finished, disassemble, but don’t wash the attachment.  Let the dough harden overnight, and it will easily break off the next day, creating less of a headache when cleaning up.

Emilio shows how to make the perfect pasta dough in your mixer.

Buona fortuna on your pasta-making journey, which is sure to delight your customers as they tuck into the delicious results of your labor!  Check out Emilio Miti’s blog for more information on pasta doughs, and as always, stay tuned for new content headed your way.