Comments on: Q & A: Soaking Pasta

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:28:31 +0000

Always undercook them and then rinse with water after draining them. It works great!

By: Soccy

Soccy — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:19:10 +0000

How do you cook Brown Rice noodles without ending up with a lumpy sticky gooey mess?

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:40:25 +0000

I’ve been making sourdough bread for a while now, partly for taste reasons and partly for health. I also love making pasta now and then, but began to be concerned that I was blithely eating in pasta all those phytates and undigested gluten that I was so carefully avoiding in my bread! So I got to wondering whether you could apply the sourdough principle to pasta and recently got around to trying it.
I made a standard pasta dough (4oz white flour to 1 egg) and added a little sourdough starter. After 24 hours it had risen. I knocked it down and left in in the fridge another day. When I came to prepare the pasta, the main differences from regular pasta were that dough was softer and springier, and also how it cooks – the dough doesn’t seem to expand so much as usual. I used the setting on my pasta machine that would normally give quite a thick noodle, but what I got was a much thinner, more translucent noodle than I would have expected. Maybe this is because some of the starch that would normally swell up gets used up in the fermentation?

So I would say if you want thick chewy noodles, roll the dough thicker than you think you need. Flavour-wise they were great – a definite but subtle difference from regular pasta, with less of a sour flavour than I expected. Will definitely be trying again!

By: Michele @ Frugal Granola

Michele @ Frugal Granola — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:41:26 +0000

Purchasing pasta has not been possible with our budget, so I’ve just stayed with whole grains. But sometimes, a homemade batch is especially fun. I refer to the Sourdough Noodle recipe linked to above.

Michele

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:37:04 +0000

Thank you so much for answering my question. The other ideas are great too! I really enjoy all of the tips you have on your site. I am practicing all these new techniques. I had not heard of soaking before I read your site.

By: Kimi @ The Nourishing Gourmet

Kimi @ The Nourishing Gourmet — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:23:49 +0000

I have used the brown pasta for a long time, but it’s gotten a little too expensive for me right now. So I started experimenting with soaking pasta dough, and making it by hand. WOW! We love it! I will be sharing the recipe soon on my blog. It’s yet another option.

By: Erin Sarah

Erin Sarah — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:09:21 +0000

We do the same thing!

By: Theresa

Theresa — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:46:47 +0000

A friend of mine sprouts her wheat, just to the point of sprouting then she dries it (in a dehydrater) and grinds that into flour. She uses her hand mill and her regular Nutrimill (as long as it is thoroughly dry – wet will kill a Nutrimill!). This is supposed to give the benefits of soaking/sprouting. She then uses that flour to make anything she normally does with flour. I wonder if that would work with pasta for those that want to go to that work!

By: Samara Root

Samara Root — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:44:15 +0000

A note on Trader Joe’s brown rice pasta:
You can greatly reduce the extra “sticky” aspect by rinsing with cold/tepid water immediately after draining and then mixing a little olive oil into the bowl of pasta, mix with your hands to ensure each piece gets coated (A little oil is all that is necessary). This works fine with white pasta too