What are the differences when adding liquids such as eggs/egg yolks/water/milk to the dough ?
Does richer dough means more tough dough ?

I have tasted a great Ravioli dish in a restaurant.
It was a one big ravioli dish filled with goat cheese and a whole egg yolk topped with crab bisc sauce
The dough was so moist and tender. It was an unusual dough. with some research i found that it was made with Choux pastry dough. I tried making it with such a dough and it was horrible. Do you have any knowledge regarding this issue ? how can one make a tender fluffy dough ?
Thanks.

Sounds like a complex version of a simple pasta dough. You can add some choux paste to a pasta dough for extra richness, but coming up with a ratio that works (let alone how to make choux pastry, which will be covered down the road) is out of the league of this forum. Again, videos on techniques are required, not just words, or else you'll never get it right.

Now, making a dough with eggs only, even just egg yolks, produces a richer dough. The extra fat in the yolks (and milk) cuts the gluten and makes for a more tender dough, but laden with lots of extra calories and saturated fats. Got to take the good with the bad.

Hi Guys. So it was all going according to plan. Made the dough in the food processor. Came out perfect. Kneaded it for 5 min. Let rest in the fridge for 2 hours. Flattened it out a little bit so it would feed into the pasta machine. Started rolling the pasta dough thru the machine. Did the whole "Roll & Fold" technique for the first 10 rolls. When the dough got too wide I'd fold it lengthwise. Got a really good popping sound (per the video) so I started to move thru the different settings. But naturally the dough began to get wide again as the settings got thinner and thinner. And at some point the outer edges began to fray. When I got to the 3rd thinnest setting the dough was wide enough that the frayed edges got caught on the sides of the feeder as I was rolling it in and it began to tear.

So my questions are these:

1. The video said to run thru each of the settings only once but is it ok to fold it in half lengthwise again to keep the edges from getting caught in the feeder and tearing the dough?

2. Any graceful way to recover from a tear other than starting over?

and finally...

3. Am I just doing this all wrong? Dough to dry? Bad feeding technique? Any recommendations?

Thanks guys.

Good points. Yes, it is okay to fold lengthwise, in fact recommended if the dough appears to want to widen even further.

The biggest cause of fraying and tearing is the drying out of the dough. Make sure there are no drafts, and taking too long to get through the process will cause drying. With practice, you'll get quicker rolling the dough out. This happens all the time with our Northwest Culinary students rolling dough for their first time.

Also, all flours and kitchens are different, so if its dry in your kitchen, the flour will be dry too, and this may mean just adding a touch more water to the mix before feeding. Also, wrapping the dough and letting it rest in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes or more helps keep the dough more supple.

Justin, you're on the right track, just need a little personal tweaking.

The last time I made laminated pasta I had way too much and decided to dry half of it (it was cut as fettucine). Do you have any thoughts on this?

It seemed to store well and I used it later in the week without problem but I was mindful that it had raw egg and could go rancid.

No problem with drying pasta, even with egg in it; however, it must be completely dried and never stored in the refrigerator. Also, when cooking the dried pasta, make sure to cook it long enough so it is tender.

Store-bought pasta that comes in nests means it has egg in it - the protein in egg makes the pasta curl - so there are no issues with dried pasta with egg, as long as there's no moisture around.

Can I make black pasta by adding the ink of squid. I watched some japanese catoon series. They add it for the black noodle. Do you think it work?

Yes, squid ink can be mixed in with the egg or water during the pasta making process to give it a black color. Happy Cooking!

I tried the lovely spinach pasta but the dough just kept on stretching and stretching through the pasta machine. I could barely handle it. Was it too soft? and perhaps too thin and it stuck together when cut.
However after letting dry for an hour it was still soft. I cooked it up and it was delicious. But the trouble of handling it seemed alot of work for me. I put the left over in a cryovac bag in the freezer I hope thats ok. Can you advise. Thank you.

Sounds like you might have just needed to cut the noodles as they stretched out. Also when you cut them you should sprinkle the noodles with a bit of flour and they should also not be stacked at all. Making this dough and rolling it out does take a bit of time and effort but the end result is worth it. As for freezing the leftovers this should work fine. Just be sure to fully thaw the dough in the refrigerator.

For more information, I suggest watching the cooking school lesson on How to Make Laminated Pasta. Cheers!

I just wanted to pick up on the thread started earlier around stand mixers. Assuming you had one that was powerful enough -- and you were making enough dough -- I take it using one only really saves you a bit of mess as you'd still have to judge if your dough is a bit too wet or dry and fixing is a bit more painful than as with a food pro. So if you wanted to use gadgets for this, I'm guessing the best combo would be a food pro then a motorized pasta roller.

Also, for anyone reading, I found the pasta episode ('Use Your Noodle') of Good Eats on YouTube where Alton visited an artisanal pasta maker in San Francisco -- the Florence Gourmet. They said they use a 60/40 mix of semolina and flour. (They're semi-drying their pasta though so I'm not sure if they'd use a different mix if they were selling fresh pasta.)

i've made my own pasta several times before coming across this video. I've only ever mixed by hand and then rolled very thinly using a rolling pin. also, if the pasta was too dry while needing, i've just wet my fingers in some cool water and continued kneading until it reached how i desired it.
is this a not good way to do that?

Mixing and rolling the dough by hand is the way it used to be done as there were no machines, so this is completely acceptable. If it works for you and you're getting the results you want, then that's what matters. Cheers!

oh good. i was beginning to think that i've been doing it wrong all this time!

I have a KitchenAid stand-mixer - it's just great for pasta. But, don't use their method or the videos. I start with large mixer blade to blend the wet and dry ingredients. Take care that you don't put too much strain on the mixer. Swith over to the hook to finish the dough. You'll have do a bit of hand kneading 1 to 2 minutes. I dust it lightly with flour, cover with pastic wrap for at least 30 minutes. I do have the pasta roller, fettuccini/spaghetti roller and the ravioli roller (expensive but I bought them on sale).We eat pasta very regularly so it's worth it.

Along with the Kitchen Aid stand-mixer & pasta attachments, I have a Chitarra (guitar strings stretched over both sides of a wood frame. One side is for spaghetti & the other for fettuccini.La Chittara is very unique to our part of Abruzzi & they're still made in my family's home town. It takes a bit of getting used to - but it's fun. I also have my mother's old hand crank pasta machine & her eigthy year old beech rolling pin (2.5'long and 1.5" diam). I've used them all.

TIPS: 1. When hand mixing and kneading keep your hands floured to prevent sticking. When done, use flour to clean off your hands before washing. It makes clean-up a lot easier.
2. Water is the kiss of death for a pasta machine. Just dust it off with a cloth and brush.
3. Be careful with water around the pasta. If water hits it, you'll have a heck of time trying to rescue your good work.

How can I keep the noodles, say, overnight prior to use? Do I have to use them immediately?

The safest bet: If it's only overnight place the pasta in the frig. Leave it flat on a cookie sheet if possible and dust lightly with flour, cover with a cloth or plastic elevated by forks or some other object to keep covering from touching the pasta. Or give the pasta a quick twist to form little mounds (100g or so)on a cookie sheet , dust lightly with flour cover with a cloth or plastic elevated by forks or some other objects to keep covering from touching the pasta. It will keep for a couple of days.
If longer, freeze it or dry it, however you have to be carefull with the handling for cooking as it can be brittle

Also, rather than cutting the noodles and leaving them overnight in the refrigerator, it is better to wrap the dough tightly with plastic wrap and keep it overnight. Roll the pasta and cut it just before cooking. This way, you won't run the risk of them sticking together overnight in the refrigerator. Cheers!

I agree with you Kim. The best is Plan A: to wrap the dough. I have been caught with having to go plan B when called away at the last minute with pasta already rolled out - ugh!

I want to try to make fresh spaghetti but was wondering if I needed to roll it out before I make the noodles. I have a Kitchen Aid pasta attachment that I've never used so I'm not sure how to go about it. I've watched the pasta video but didn't see anything on spaghetti.

I have not used a Kitchen Aid pasta attachment but I am sure they would have a setting that allows you to roll the pasta out just like we showed on the pasta machine in the lesson. After that you would then attach or use (again not sure how it works with this machine) the spaghetti roller and then put the rolled pasta through that to form the noodles. Hope this helps - cheers!

Ok thanks, I thought I needed to but wasn't sure. I bought a pasta machine (haven't used it yet) so I will roll the pasta through that first. My pasta machine does have attachments so I'll experiment with the pasta machine versus the Kitchen aid attachment to see what works best.

Good idea to do an experiment. Let us know if you notice any difference between the rollers. Good luck Kari and enjoy your dinner. Cheers!

I use the kitchen aid pasta attachments all the time with excellent results.
I'll make a video and send it along. Skip the kitchen aid videos, they are not very good.