atlas cranked: vegan fresh pasta

this lovely specimen was waiting for me at the thrift store yesterday:

an all-metal, italian-made atlas pasta machine, old but still in the box, looking barely used. i was already planning to attempt a veganized fresh pasta recipe, and was on the lookout for pasta machines but didn’t think i’d find one so fast.

i looked up a few different eggless pasta recipes and cobbled together one that suits me. soy flour is not required, but it makes a good egg substitute and adds lots of protein. this recipe makes enough for about two meals, and can easily be multiplied:

1 cup semolina flour
1/3 cup whole-grain soy flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon olive oil

mix the semolina, soy and salt, then add water and oil and mix thoroughly. add more liquid/dry as needed to reach a very stiff dough consistency that doesn't crumble.

knead the dough for about 5 minutes, roll it in a ball, cover it in plastic wrap and let it sit for 20 minutes.

bisect the ball and set one half aside. roll out the other half with a rolling pin until it’s thin enough to be processed through the widest setting of the pasta machine’s sheet roller. roll it through a few times, folding it in half and re-rolling it until it's a good rectangle-ish shape, then reset the roller to whatever thickness you want your pasta and feed it through again. (for my fettuccine i used the third-to-last setting, and for thin spaghetti i used the last/thinnest setting). repeat for the other half of the dough.

allow the sheets of dough to dry for 10-15 minutes. i read that if they aren’t dry enough they’ll clog the cutters. feed the sheets one at a time through one of the cutting rollers if necessary for your desired shape.

drape your noodles over a coat hanger and allow them to dry for a few hours. once stiff and dry, add the pasta to boiling water (with salt and olive oil). it only takes a short while to cook, so be vigilant.

first i made delicate, fine spaghetti. i was impatient and didn’t wait for it to dry, then cooked it too long ("too long" was not even two minutes)...so the resulting cooked pasta had none of that firm bite to it, but it tasted delicious anyway. with the remaining dough i made fettuccine:

this step reminded me of that page in the book “pat the yuppie” (a parody of “pat the bunny”) on which you get to pat the yuppie’s fresh homemade pasta: a line of thick, fettuccine-esque rubber bands protruding from the cardboard page.

here are the noodles in the process of drying:

dry:

and cooked (al dente)!

after brainstorming with my friend bethany (who thankfully gets just as excited over these sorts of things as i do), i’ve decided my next pasta project is going to be spinach ravioli stuffed with herb tofu ricotta, served with some kind of homemade sauce.