Question
Havelock Nelson
Is there a work-around for a pasta machine, a rolling pin or roller along with kneading, perhaps? I won’t make pasta often & don’t need another infrequently-used kitchen tool. Is a pasta machine essential to the desired outcome?
Answer
A great question and very good, uh, I think thought here in terms of setting up a kitchen, and that is the avoidance of another infrequently used kitchen tool. Um, the most efficient kitchens are gonna have tools that, uh, are multi tools. Um, but of course, there, uh, you know, are, are gonna be specialty ingredients that you might produce that, uh, do call for a particular machine of some sort or some sort of, you know, technology. But in the case of, uh, pasta, you can certainly hand roll it. Um, if we, you know, go back in time, um, before the advent of the pasta machine, folks would've been hand rolling their dough, and it's gonna take a little bit of, uh, extra time and effort on your part. It might even take some extra practice, uh, in terms of, uh, mixing the dough so you get the hydration at a point where it is reasonably easy for you to stretch out that dough. Okay? Um, but absolutely, yeah, you know, with practice, um, there are folks that will do this by hand. Uh, it is, um, common that if you hand roll pasta, that the result may be a little bit thicker than what the machine would produce. Um, so do keep that in mind in terms of the style of pasta that might result. Um, the mouth feel will be a little bit different, but certainly the results will be as delicious as you make it.
