Fresh pasta, like a warm loaf of bread recently out of the oven or a meticulously tweaked carafe of pour-over coffee, is one of those delights that really is better than the automated or industrially-produced alternative. Unfortunately, fresh pasta is typically such an involved project that I need to block out a part of my calendar if I want to do it. At least that used to true—until I discovered a new favorite pasta maker.
The problem I've always had with making pasta is that the rolling process is cumbersome and takes some real practice to get down. There were automatic rollers, sure, but they mostly seemed like the sort of $500-$600 machines someone would really only buy if fresh pasta was their whole personality. But it turns out that Marcato, the makers of our longtime favorite manual pasta machines, offer motorized add-ons that make the cranking process easier. This changed the game for me.
These simple motors fit into the hole where the pasta maker's hand crank usually goes. The motor spins the wheels inside the machine that roll out your dough, free the hand you'd normally use to crank the handle. You can use one to guide the dough through the machine, and one to catch it as it comes out, which makes the process so much more seamless. It's also way faster. Adding a motor to the machines produced more consistently rolled and cut dough, as well. My kindergartner was even easily able to help me out.
It's not like this makes homemade pasta a weeknight dinner solution. There's still the matter of needing to knead and rest the dough. But honestly, if you use a stand mixer and a dough hook for the job (it absolutely comes out fine if you do), you can be working on a sauce while you wait for your dough to be ready to roll and have a delicious, impressive dinner in a little more than an hour.
The addition of a motorized pasta roller is getting me to take the great pasta cookbooks that were mostly gathering dust, like Vicki Bennison's collection of very old-school dishes in Pasta Grannies, or Missy Robbins' Pasta, off the shelf for more regular use.
—Noah Kaufman
No comments:
Post a Comment