Whole wheat pasta

[mom]

Does anyone have a good recipe for homemade spaghetti or lasagna

[cubcadet]

I make spaghetti with a Popeil Pasta Maker, which is a kind of finicky machine. The dough must not be too wet, or it will just stick to the paddles and not even come out of the die. I have figured out just by looking at the consistancy of the dough when it is time to extrude.
I assume you can make pasta, so I`ll just give you some ingredients that I use which will not change the consistancy of the dough.

Chili powder
various fruit and vegetable juices, wine or beer in place of water
black pepper(a favorite of mine)
beer
potato, jerusalem artichoke, and/or bean flours
grated lemon or orange peels

Just make sure the dry ingredients are fine enough to make it through your die. I always use whole egg when making dough because it helps to hold the noodles together when they come out of the die.
Joe

[Shamrock1121]

It's about the flour type you choose, not just the recipe... You can usually convert your favorite recipes that use bleached/unbleached flour and use wholegrain flour.

If you are milling your own grain, the correct flour to use to make whole wheat pasta and noodles is milled from durum wheat, rather than hard or soft wheat (hard wheat for bread flour - where you want a lot of gluten development, and soft wheat for pastry flour - where you don't want a lot of gluten development).

Durum wheat is what semolina flour is derived from (durum with the bran and germ removed and milled on a coarse setting) and used for pasta. While wholegrain noodles are made with durum flour (fine grind).

Durum wheat, although it has the highest amount of protein of all wheat types, is used for pasta rather than bread because of the dominance of the protein gliadin; while hard wheat has a dominance of the protein glutein. What we commonly call "gluten" is actually a group of proteins - glutein and gliadin.

If you don't have durum wheat for milling, then hard or soft wheat will work, preferable soft wheat over hard (to avoid too much gluten that will make the noodles tough), but is not the optimum flour for pasta.

When I make a "traditional" recipe, I generally use a coarsely-milled durum flour for pasta, and a finely-milled durum flour for noodles. I use the coarse setting on my Nutrimill or on my Marga Mulino Flaker/Roller Mill to simulate the coarseness of the grind of simolina flour.

I normally use a fermented/sourdough recipe and method for wholegrain pasta - Pel’meni Dough for noodles and pasta.

http://westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/sourdough_egg_noodles.html

I prefer the sourdough method because it makes the wholegrain pasta nearly like pasta made with white flour in looks and mouth-feel. Most people don't like the acidic flavor of whole wheat pasta, nor the toughness. Fermentation helps eliminate that.

I also like to use triticale (a high-protein grain that is a hybrid grain developed from a combination of durum and rye), or kamut (the ancient form of durum wheat).

-Karen

[humbug]

Karen,
I am having problems locating a place to buy duram wheat. Do you have an online source?

[MasterChief]

Barry Farm Foods is an internet old fashioned country store.

They buy product in bulk and sell it to you in smaller quantities, with simple packaging and labeling to save you money.

In their on-line catalog, you will find foods like: assorted grains, fruits, flours, sugars, nuts, baking supplies, pastas, beans, herbs and spices, tea, candy making supplies, flavoring oils, etc......


They have "Certified Organic" Durum Flour for $1.29lb, 5% discount for 5lbs and 25% discount for 25lbs.


[http://www.barryfarm.com/flours.htm]