[Sca-cooks] handmade pasta

[david friedman]

>Elizabeth gave a recipe for a pasta dish which included:
>>Rishta
>>    al-Baghdadi p.45/7
>>
><snip>
>>Boil until cooked:
>>then add more water, and bring thoroughly to the boil. Now add
>>spaghetti (which is made by kneading flour and water well, then
>>rolling out fine and cutting into thin threads four fingers long).
>>Put over the fire and cook until set to a smooth consistency. When it
>>has settled over a gentle fire for an hour, remove.
><snip>
>>  Knead
>>thoroughly, roll out, cut into thin strips. Add to pot, simmer 1/2
>>hour being careful not to let it stick to the bottom and scorch,
>>serve.
>I've never tried to make handmade pasta. Have others on this list? 
>How big or what shape would the pasta be described in this recipe? 
>Would they be bigger and more irregular than the commercial dried 
>stuff I can buy in the grocery? I imagine the processed stuff is 
>extruded, not rolled out. It seems like making something with that 
>small of a diameter, round and consistent would be rather difficult. 
>Making it by hand also sounds very long and labor intensive, so I 
>don't know if I will ever try it but it would be interesting to know 
>about.
>
>What are the taste/texture differences between fresh and dried 
>pasta, either homemade or store-bought after both have been boiled?
>
>Seeing the "spaghetti" above I was assuming a round cross-section. 
>But the recipe also says "thin strips". So am I wrong in thinking of 
>spaghetti as being round? I think of narrow flat strips as being 
>lingini.
>
>Thanks,
>   Stefan

"Spaghetti" is how Arberry translated it, presumably because he 
thought that was the closest equivalent. But the instructions tell 
you that you are rolling it out fine and cutting it into threads, and 
that doesn't give a round cross section.

As I make it, you end up with flat noodles perhaps 1/4" wide and 
1/16" thick (that's a guess--I don't remember having ever measured 
it). The texture when it is cooked is  different from modern 
spaghetti--more like the chinese dishes that have soft noodles in 
them. And the flour on the noodles ends up thickening the liquid some.

It isn't all that much trouble--it's one of our household standard 
recipes. Doing it for a large feast would involve some work, but not 
impossible amounts. For one recipe I suppose I spend fifteen or 
twenty minutes rolling out and cutting.

And it's very good.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/