Homemade pasta can be cut into many shapes and sizes and filled. We offer a variety of information so that you can begin making pasta from scratch or just plain cooking boxed pasta and pairing it with the right sauce.—Buon appetito!

History
Making Pasta
Rolling Pasta
Cooking Pasta
Pasta Cooking Myths
Filling Pasta
A, B, C's of Pasta
Nutrition
Recipes
Pasta Shapes and Sauce Pairings

History

It is popular belief that Marco Polo introduced pasta to the peoples of Italy after his travels to Asia in 1295. On the contrary, Greeks and Romans were eating pasta 1000 years before the birth of Christ. There are stone carvings of pasta-making tools, dating from 400 BC in Etruscan tombs north of Rome. The Romans made all kinds of fresh pasta, among them a wide flat noodle called laganum, which today we know as lasagna. The Roman gourmand, Marcus Apicius (from which the word Epicurean originates) mentions pasta in a collection of recipes called De re Coquinaria (on cooking), which dates from the first century and is reputed to be the first cookbook.

As time progressed, geography and politics brought the Roman and Arabic cultures together. The Romans first cultivated wheat; the Arabic connection to the history of pasta, especially in the dried form, is well documented. Dried pasta, or pasta secca, became popular food in Italy at the end of the first millennium AD. It was during the Renaissance that pasta in all forms was celebrated in art, literature, and at the table. By 1400 pasta was produced commercially in Italy.

Naples became the center of pasta production in 1785, with more than 280 pasta shops competing for space in the city. When Italian immigrants began arriving in America between 1880 and 1920, they brought with them their passion and love for this food. Italian immigrants are ultimately responsible for pasta becoming staple of the American middle class.

Making Pasta

Homemade pasta is made with all purpose flour and a liquid, traditionally eggs. It can also contain water, wine, oil, herbs, vegetable purees, and salt. Store-bought dried pasta is a commercial product made with durum wheat and water.

Rolling Pasta

Techniques for making pasta have progressed and manual and electric machines often replace the old fashioned rolling pin. Today's cooks are finding pasta machines easy and fast to use, which ensures a regular appearance of homemade pasta on the dinner table.

• Pasta dough can be rolled directly after kneading; it is not essential that it rest first. A rolling machine works best with a somewhat stiff dough.
• Cut dough into four or six pieces, whatever is easiest to handle for the machine.
• Before rolling, machine-knead the dough to assure a flattened, smooth and shiny product. Flatten one piece of dough with your hands, flour it, and pass it through the machine at the widest setting. Fold the pasta in half or thirds, turn, and feed through the machine at the same setting two or three times. Be sure to fold and turn dough each time it passes through the rollers at this wide setting. Lightly flour if necessary.
• Adjust rollers to the next (smaller) setting to stretch the dough. Flour the dough if it feels sticky and feed through the machine once (do not fold dough).
• To continue stretching and thinning the dough, shift the rollers to the next (narrower) setting, passing it through the rollers one or two times. Repeat this step until the dough has reached the desired thinness.
• The pasta is then ready to cut into desired shapes to be filled.

Cooking Pasta

• Throw the pasta against the wall to see if it is ready.

Throwing cooked pasta against the wall does nothing but make a mess! Taste the pasta to see if it has the right "bite" and is al dente.

Filling Pasta

• Fillings can be as simple as one or two ingredients to several ingredients used in special recipes. Ingredients, such as meats, fish, cheese, vegetables, and herbs are used in preparing fillings for stuffed pastas. It is common for eggs to be used in fillings to bind ingredients together.
• The filling used should be as free of moisture as possible to prevent the pasta from becoming soggy. Remove as much moisture as possible from all ingredients before mixing together.
• If using a moist filling, do not let the pasta set too long before cooking because the moisture from the filling may cause the pasta to stick to the surface where it has been placed.
• Be sure the filling is completely prepared before starting to work with the pasta so the pasta does not dry out while you are preparing the filling.
• When adding filling to pasta, do not over fill because too much filling will not allow enough room for the edges to seal properly.
• Strengthen your homemade pasta dough by substituting ½ cup or less of semolina flour in place of an equal amount of all-purpose flour.
• If the pasta becomes sticky at any point while working with the dough, dust it lightly with flour. Also, dust the equipment you are working with, such as the rolling pin or the rollers in the pasta machine, to prevent the dough from sticking.
• When putting pasta strips through a rolling machine to thin the dough, if the strips become long and hard to handle, cut the strips in half to make them easier to handle.
• Allowing the pasta dough to dry for approximately 15 minutes before cutting will result in cleaner cuts.
• Drying the cut pasta noodles or shapes for 15 minutes or more before cooking will allow the pasta to firm up a little and prevent the pasta from sticking together when cooking.
• Save the trimmings when cutting pasta noodles or shapes, press the trimmings together, re-roll, and cut additional noodles or shapes.
• When making stuffed pasta, work as quickly as possible to prevent the pasta dough from drying out and becoming difficult to work with, and to prevent problems with the pasta sealing properly

A, B, C's of Pasta

~A ½ cup serving of cooked pasta (noodles only) contains 99 calories, less than a half gram of fat, and less than 5 mg sodium~
~Pasta is high in complex carbohydrates (energy source), which provides a time release energy source~
~Pasta, along with bread, cereal, and rice, comprise the bottom tier of the USDA food pyramid, which recommends 3 servings (½ cup) of whole grains per day~
~2 oz. of dry pasta supplies the equivalent of 100 micrograms of folic acid or 25% of the recommended daily intake~