Homemade Italian Pasta- Thoughts on Lesson 3

I'm still working on my Craftsy Handmade Italian Pasta lessons.  So I figured it's time for an update.  Lesson three was about hand cutting your noodles at different sizes for different reasons.  The lesson goes over making bow tie pasta and a garganelli which is kind of tube shape with ridges on the outside.

I focused on the much simpler pappardelle, angel hair, and maltagliati.  The pappardelle is super wide.  Angel hair of course if very thin.  When hand cutting pasta, you fold your pasta into a loose tube and simply cut.  I don't think I my pasta was dry enough because it was very smooshy when I cut it.  Well smooshy isn't the right word, but my knife did not go through it super easily and it kind of crushed my layers together.  Maybe I need to sharpen my blades.  This also made it hard to cut angel hair thin enough, but I managed to hack my way through it.  And it still tasted super when I cooked it.

Maltagliati is a laid back cut used for soups.  Basically, you roll your pasta into a loose tube, and just cut a small triangle off the corners, then cut off the triangle tip off, and repeat until your pasta is all cut.  Once again, drier pasta or sharper blades (or both) would have made it easier, but I managed.  I haven't made a soup that needs noodles yet, but I have a ziploc bag of little pasta triangles all ready to go once I do.

Interested in learning how to make pasta for yourself?  Or interested in learning to make Italian soups, Mexican street food, or French pastries?  Craftsy has a class for that!  Check out their online cooking classes for yourself.  They're always adding new courses.