Question about flouring fresh pasta: I made a lot of ravioli with green pasta this week...

J

joe

Well-known member
and I find the green pasta stays very sticky. I use lots of Swiss chard for a dark green pasta, and I think the greens continue to exude moisture as the dough sits. So I use a lot of flour to keep things from sticking, then lay the ravioli on floured towels, flipping, to dry them out a bit.

The problem is some of the flour gets caked on the dough and turns gluey when the ravioli is boiled. I'm not getting any complaints, but it's a textural thing I'd like to avoid. Any ideas?

I think I saw Tyler Florence use cornmeal or semolina for dusting when he was making fresh noodles.

http://eat.at/swap/forum/index.php?action=display&forumid=1&msgid=51010

 
Semolina should help Joe- also can you elevate the floured towels on cooling racks so

that you have more air circulation?

I didn't look at the recipe but I am assuming you don't use stalks- and that you use only baby swiss chard leaves- much less moisture. If you use baby leaves you won't even need to blanch them.

When I make green pasta I usually use fresh spinach- and I squeeze the bejeebers out of it by twisting in a dishtowel. then I let it sit and squeeze again so it is really dry. At that point you probably could even put in a slow oven to dry it out some. Might work with the swiss chard.

 
No stalks, but the leaves were not so young and I only gave them one squeezing, so that is helpful

I'll try the semolina. I've feared it would give the ravioli a sandpaper texture but it's worth trying once.

Thanks, Cathy!

 
I find the semolina doesn't stick. Any that does tends to come off in the boiling. Make sure you use

the coarse-ground semolina, though. There's also a fine-ground, which is more like flour and more likely to stick. (I'm sure you knew that.)

 
Don't be so sure. The semolina I havc is coarser than flour but finer than corn meal, Kind of sandy.

I will definitely try it instead of flour and let you know.

 
Joe, have you tried rice flour? In our ravioli making cooking classes we've used

rice flour with great results...it's finer that wheat flour and doesn't clump like wheat flour does. You can buy it inexpensively in bulk at health food stores. Come to think of it I believe Whole Foods carries it too in their bulk bins.

 
We use it for dusting,

sorry I wasn't clear about that. Big catering job held outdoors in the 100 degree heat yesterday fried my brain...LOL (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

 
Or maybe you simply couldn't imagine I would consider it for the dough. Big catering job for me too

yesterday has me a little brain dead--but only 60 people, and only 90 degrees. Fortunately it was not the ravioli; that was for a class Thursday. I made the famous BA Wild Mushroom Lasanga and froze it last week.

I still have green dough in the freezer. I think I should pick up some rice flour and some more semolina and try noodles dusted with each of them.

 
What a good idea- rice flout! Pat has done it again. I bet that would work great.

You catering hounds bring back memories of years of catering stories which I won't bore you with. Crazy days of making it all work without electricity, gas or any kind of refrigeration and just when you think you have your 60 plates ready to roll another 40 guests show up.....ah, the good old days.

 
I finally have a pasta kit for the KA and was wondering which flour to use. I haven't located

seminola yet, and I see someone said it comes in different grinds. Which is the best for pasta? Do you mix it with regular flour? Can you use regular flour with no seminola? And if so, should I use the King Arthur bread flour or regular unbleached flour? I want insure it will work in the KA pasta roller.

 
Unless a recipe specifies something like 00 flour, I've never had any problem with

regular unbleached all-purpose. It tastes good and is easy to work with. (You can also of course make pasta with other flours or mixes of flours, notably buckwheat, whole wheat, chestnut, and farro.) With machine rollers you may need to add flour to prevent sticking. This is fine up to a point. Towards the end, when the pasta is thinner, you have to stop or you'll be pressing flour into the pasta which won't be able to absorb it anymore.

You can use semolina flour but the really finely ground stuff can be hard to find outside Italian neighbourhoods. Look for packages labelled "semolina di grano duro." The coarser grinds (which are fine for gnocchi and for coating and baking with) aren't suitable.

All the above is for standard egg-flour pasta. I've found that if you're going to make stuffed pastas, it helps if the dough is a little wetter, so I add oil and/or wine, although if you're really clever you can add more egg without making things too gummy.

Overall it's fairly forgiving. About the only problem is when it dries too fast while you're trying to shape and stuff.

 
Ditto for what Shaun wrote. I generally use unbleached white flour too.

Getting the dough consistency right is the real secret to get it to extrude properly- but I'm sure you know that.

 
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