Newbie pasta making questions

One more thing - regarding dough recipes - has anyone experimented with mixing semolina flour with AP flour? I think the semolina is supposed to help make the dough stiffer (higher gluten content), and thus would be helpful to prevent sticking. My recipe is half semolina, though - and I still have sticking.

No, Zorba's the Greek.

Never On Sunday (singing)

I did visit the museum dedicated to Nikos Kazantzakis when I was on holiday in Crete, and a jolly good time was had by one and all.

The fellow in the video Mame gave the link for in the last page uses half semolina.

I've not tried it since I use the semolina I have for bread (it's pricey at my closest grocery stores), and since I'm happy enough with my fettucine with regular unbleached flour.

Anyway, Dave, I think we've exhausted our advice so you should watch some youtube videos or google the question.

Edit: For example:

http://www.cheftalk.com/t/37768/how-do-you-keep-fresh-pasta-from-sticking-together

Easy. You can do it, I know you can. (google, I mean)

Just tried it again, making spaghetti with my Marcado pasta maker. I used one of ossobuco's recipes - just AP flour (no semolina), and a lot more eggs than I have used before. The dough came out great (thanks!), but I still have problems with sticking. I tried drying the sheets for varying amounts of time before putting through the pasta rollers (that sounded promising), but no matter what I do - every other strand of spaghetti is stuck together. I think I've invented a new type of pasta - duo-getti! I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with my spaghetti rollers. Every "pair" of strands is perfectly seperate - so that would indicate that there isn't really a sticking problem with the dough itself. It's just that the rollers only cut every other strand.

Does this sound feasible? Anyone know of how I can contact Marcado for advice on this? I can't find any way to reach them...

- Dave

Sorry, I missed this reply, Dave. I'll nose around the web or the Marcato box I still have and see if I find how to do that.

Adds, I've just reread the thread quickly - a bunch of folks use some olive oil in the dough, which I've never tried. The one who uses most, by far, is Lydia Bastianich (or is it Lidia?)

Ok, the email is [email protected]

Their website is http://www.marcato.net/
It's in italian, but just click on translate, italian to english.

Listening..