I Love Pasta but Not Enough to Make It
Written: Jan 14 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Durable product
Cons: Too much work required; need a big workspace
The Bottom Line: For the amount of work involved, I prefer to buy fresh pasta instead of making it.
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| Stephy's Full Review: Imperia Pasta Machine |
I love fresh pasta which lead to me getting the Imperia Pasta Machine. Upon picking up the box, you notice that this thing is heavy! Within the box, you get: the machine itself, the crank handle, clamp (to hold the machine steady to a table) and a cutter for fettuccine and tagliatelle. (You can buy additional cutters to make different types of pasta.)
Making Fresh Pasta
Set-up
You'll want to find somewhere you can clamp down the pasta machine. I found that I cannot clamp it down to my countertops since there is very little overhang between the countertop and the cabinets below. I have always needed to use a table. The clamp is meant to hold the machine in place, but I have always had the machine move slightly while using it. You'll also want to attach the hand crank to the machine. You'll need to use the crank to roll the pasta through the machine and cutter. The crank is not attached to the machine, which is a big mistake. (I believe the reason is so that you can replace it with a motorized crank --- I guess this is their ploy to get you to spend more money.) You will have to use some muscle power in order to turn the crank as much as needed. I'm in my 20s and it isn't an issue but I could see dear old granny having a problem. My issue was that the crank doesn't lock into place. It would often fall out of the machine while I was cranking it, which I found very frustrating.
Ingredients and Process
First you want to find a recipe; if you buy pasta (semolina) flour, there will be a recipe on the side of the bag. But the ingredients that you will need include: pasta flour, eggs, water, olive oil, salt. Of course, if you want to flavor your pasta, you may need some additional ingredients such as tomatoes, spinach or even chocolate. So you will want to combine all of your ingredients in a food processor (or by hand) since the Imperia Pasta Machine is just your basic roller and cutters, it doesn't include a mixer.
So now you have your batch of dough. Even if your recipe was only for one serving, you'll want to separate your dough into small batches. Now you need to find a big workspace. For me, this winds up being the kitchen table. You'll want to take your dough batches and use a rolling pin to start to flatten them so they will resemble a sheet. You'll want to let your pasta sit for a few minutes to harden slightly and then you'll be able to feed them through the machine.
You'll now need to run your pasta through the machines rollers. There are 6 rollers settings (thicker to thinner). I found that I would need to run each sheet of pasta through each setting three or four times before bringing it down to a thinner setting. I would often need to sprinkle the pasta sheet with flour to prevent it from being too sticky. The pasta sheet would getting thinner and longer each time, but I typically found that at the bottom three thin settings, my pasta sheet would start detaching from the rest of the sheet; so one sheet of pasta more typically turned into two or three. (The directions said that you would need to cut the sheets because they would get too long, but this always happened involuntarily for me.) Once your pasta sheet was the desired thinness, you would want to let it sit again to harden and then you would send it through the cutters. I was NEVER successful at this. I always just wound up laying my pasta sheets on the table and cutting them with a knife. After the pasta is cut, you need to let it sit yet again to harden. Finally you get to the point that you can cook your pasta. Boil a pot of water and then toss your pasta inside. Since this is fresh pasta, it only takes a minute or two to cook.
Eating Fresh Pasta
For some reason, my fresh pasta never tastes like what you can get in restaurants. In my first attempt, I just used traditional white flour. When I looked at the recipe it called for pasta (semolina) flour, but I so excited about making fresh pasta and figured there was no real difference. That was a mistake that I didn't make again. After the pasta was made, it tasted pretty much like white flour. So after that mistake, I have always used the correct semolina flour. (As an FYI: semolina flour is made from hard durum winter wheat whereas white flour is made from red winter wheat.) With the correct flour, my homemade pasta taste similar to what how I expect pasta to taste but it is still far from restaurant quality.
Cleaning up the Pasta Machine
So after the long process of making pasta, now it's time for cleanup. The machine warns you not to use water on it since all of its parts are metal and you don't want to rust it.
At this point, I get a paper towel and run it through the rollers to get any easy to remove pasta. Then I wait awhile because the soft pasta dough is sticky and tough to clean out, I would let the machine sit out until the dough hardens. At this point, I am able to start chipping away at the harden dough. But in all honesty, if you look at the machine, you can definitely see some impossible dough that I have no idea how to remove it.
Overall
I decided that making my own fresh pasta took too much work. I would spend about 1.5 hours making the pasta. (And in my mind, pasta is supposed to be a quick easy meal.) Luckily, I have found a pasta shop that supplies many of the Princeton, NJ area restaurants with their homemade pasta and they sell it direct to the public. So I have decided to box up my Imperia Pasta Machine and I now buy all of my fresh pasta. Of course, I still use boxed pasta too.
Of course, if you still want this machine after reading my review. It will cost you about $40-$50; it is easily found at many online stores and in-person at kitchen shops.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Stephy
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Member: Stephanie FZ
Location: Newtown, PA
Reviews written: 19
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
A late-20s Penn State Grad
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