Pasta drying problem

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

taxlady

Chef Extraordinaire
Moderator Emeritus
Joined
Sep 13, 2010
Messages
34,094
Location
near Montreal, Quebec
I made fettuccine. It cooked and tasted fine. The stuff that is hanging to dry is getting curly! :LOL:

How do I prevent that another time?
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2405.jpg
    IMG_2405.jpg
    116.6 KB · Views: 277
  • IMG_2407.jpg
    IMG_2407.jpg
    54.2 KB · Views: 339
Only let the past dry for ruffly an hour is the most dry spot you can think of in your house. You wanna make sure that the pasta is as dry as refrigerated pasta not hard as a rock. a decent coating of flower will help. also running a fan will help the process as long as that air is not touching humidity. Afterwards put it in the fridge for 12 hours, or eat in 3 days max. To pro-long the pasta you can have it in the freezer for up to 3 months properly packaged.
 
I've been making my own pasta for decades and there's nothing wrong with your pasta. Curling is a natural characteristic. It comes from the moisture drying from the almost imperceptibly irregularly-shaped noodles. Commercial pasta is made under very controlled conditions and is more uniform in thickness, etc. Homemade/handmade pasta is naturally irregular.

Keep on doing what you've been doing and enjoy every yummy bite.
 
Last edited:
Some folks dry fettuccine in nests to save space.

I like that idea. It would make storage easier. Is there a trick to making sure the pasta doesn't stick permanently to itself? Do I hang it to dry for a little while first? Do I sprinkle flour on it?
 
I've been making my own pasta for decades and there's nothing wrong with your pasta. Curling is a natural characteristic. It comes from the moisture drying from the almost imperceptibly irregularly-shaped noodles. Commercial pasta is made under very controlled conditions and is more uniform in thickness, etc. Homemade/handmade pasta is naturally irregular.

Keep on doing what you've been doing and enjoy every yummy bite.

Thank you for the encouragement.

I actually have a bit of practice making pasta. I just never tried to dry it completely before. I used to freeze it, but that was a nuisance, trying to keep the strands from sticking together. And it uses a lot of waxed paper.

There are three problems with the curly pasta:

  1. It breaks as I take it off the rack.
  2. It is tangled with the other pasta.
  3. It's not going to fit easily into a container.
 
I like that idea. It would make storage easier. Is there a trick to making sure the pasta doesn't stick permanently to itself? Do I hang it to dry for a little while first? Do I sprinkle flour on it?

I've never done it myself but have bought it that way. Sounds like partial drying might be the way to go.
 
That won't last very long will it? How often do you make pasta?

No it won't. That'll be enough for one meal for me and my DH.

We got exhausted making that 500 gram batch of pasta. Not getting any younger. I can't even imagine doing it without the hand crank pasta machine. It does a lot of the kneading. I used to make lasagna noodles all by hand. :ohmy:

Maybe I should just make up the 500 or 1000 gram batch of dough and put that in the freezer in portions. It would be a fair bit less work just cranking out enough for one meal and I wouldn't have any hand kneading with the pre-made dough.
 
How about dehydrating it in the oven?
It's just a guess on my part. Don't know if you have a dehydrator unit.. But if not wouldn't an oven at it's lowest temp- removing the racks work? I see you already have a pasta rack.

For me to dehydrate a batch of pasta takes less then 1 hour in my Ex. I don't think it would be much more time if you did use your oven.

I use a flour sifter over the pasta to help keep the strands separated before drying.
 
Back
Top Bottom