Make Professional Quality Artisinal Pasta At Home With the Lillo Due Pasta Extruder

Typical homemade pasta is made with flour (of various kinds), eggs and/or water kneaded by hand and then either rolled and cut or run through a simple press that produces flat sheets or ribbons of noodles. And such pasta is wonderful for many uses where you want extra fresh, soft noodles that are pliable, quick to cook, or can be stuffed like ravioli or tortellini.

But you can't readily make fancy shaped pasta in such a fashion, such as ziti, fusilli, bucatini or wagon wheels! Those pasta shapes are instead made with an extruder, where the pasta dough ingredients are mechanically mixed and then forced through dies of different shapes. The noodles can then be cut by hand or automatically to a desired length, then either consumed fresh or dried for later use.

Basically all commercially produced, dried pasta you purchase in markets today is made using large-scale extruding machines. This pasta is generally only made with flour and water, and the type of die used affects their texture. Brass dies are considered the ideal because they produce extruded pasta with a rough, coarse texture that "grabs" pasta sauces and gives noodles a lighter color once dried. That's what artisinal pasta producers will generally use, but the drying process is slower using brass dies than mass-production companies want. So most big commercial companies use extruder dies coated with teflon or other non-stick materials, with results in a pasta with a smoother texture that dries to shelf-stable quickly. But, with speed there is a sacrifice in that final texture, and that's why many true pasta enthusiasts prefer to make their own noodles or only buy those made by artisinal pasta companies using brass dies and equipment.

The Lillo Due pasta extruder is just like the kind of machine top quality professional chefs would use in their own commercial kitchen to produce fresh extruded noodles. In fact, it could well serve a small restaurant kitchen that needed to produce 50 or more servings of pasta a night! The pasta dies for the Lillo Due are made of brass for that great textural quality (some shapes are available teflon-lined as well.)

It's so simple to use, too. Just mix your flour with the liquid component(s) of your choice: water, eggs, pureed vegetables, even wine. Get the dough to the right "crumbly" texture, then switch it from the mix setting to extrude. Watch as the noodles start coming out of the machine quickly so you can cut them to the length you want. Then either use the noodles fresh or let them dry to store for later enjoyment. It's like having a pasta factory in your very own kitchen!

If you're interested in buying one of these Lillo Due pasta extruders, your best place to look for a good deal on one is eBay. That's where I bought mine, and also some of the various brass dies I use with my machine. There is usually an auction or two running at any given time and you can get one typically for less than the full list price.

Keeping the brass dies and other brass components of the pasta extruder clean and tarnish free is important!

After use, I wash my dies thoroughly in hot soapy water, then place them in a plastic container full of vinegar to soak and loosen gummed-up flour. Sometimes it can take overnight soaking or even several days to work out all of the pasta flour from the dies. After again washing them thoroughly, I then store all of the dies in a clean container of white vinegar until next use. This keeps them in great shape and tarnish-free. It's so easy!

Again eBay is a great place to go to look for different pasta dies for your Lillo Due machine. They are available in many different types including spaghetti, fettuccine, tagliolini, rigatoni, macaroni, lasagne, linguine, bucatini, chitarre, pappardelle, reginette, fusilli and other specialties.

While it can seem like an expensive investment at first, the Lillo Due pasta extruder can definitely earn its keep not just in your daily use but around the holidays, too! After all, for the price of some flour, gift bags and whatever flavorings you might wish to use, you can make fun artisinal pasta gifts for your friends and family.

You can also host pasta-making parties where people can try their hand at making different shapes and flavors of pasta to take home or eat right then and there with a choice of simple, tasty sauces. It's fun and even kids will find it cool to watch the fresh pasta being made.

Despite ease of use, there are some things you definitely want to know about properly using a pasta extruder such as the Lillo Due:

• Dough texture is extremely important! One of the hardest things is to get just the right moisture ratio in your dough. It needs to be fairly crumbly and dry, much drier than if you were making hand-rolled or hand-cut pasta. If the dough is too wet it will jam up in the extruder die and your noodles will not have the right texture and consistency. Experience and experiments will help you get a feel for this, especially if you are trying to use different types of flour instead of standard semolina.
• Always thoroughly clean your dies before use. If your brass die has any old, dried flour in it your noodles will not come out with the proper shape. So always be sure to inspect them for cleanliness before attempting to use. In the summer, you can even take your pasta dies outside and blast them with a watering hose to really clean out the old "gunk"!
• Always make sure your mixer and auger are locked in place before use.The Lillo Due has a very powerful motor and you don't want to risk damaging your machine, or causing injury, if the moving parts in the mixing "hopper" are not properly aligned and locked.
• Allow the dies to warm up before "keeping" extruded noodles. When extruding, the first pasta coming out of the dies is likely to look mis-shappen, incomplete, or too rough. Don't worry, just cut off those noodles and toss them back into the hopper. The brass dies typically need a few minutes to heat up to start producing noodles with the right consistency and texture. So don't think you need to adjust the dough mixture too quickly.

One repeat problem I kept having with my Lillo Due was removing the die after use. Heat combined with the pasta flour often made it very difficult for me to unscrew the die cap without considerable effort—and using a pipe wrench risks stripping and ruining the brass. A plumber (in my house for other reasons!) suggested I try a food-grade silicon grease coating before screwing on the pasta dies, the kind used regularly in restaurant equipment. And he was right! It works like a charm and I never had a problem removing my pasta dies after use now. A little goes a long way, too, so it's an inexpensive material to keep on hand, to keep your pasta making going smoothly.

One necessary accessory to have with this machine is a tray or trays for drying your pasta for later use. Plastic trays with mesh-style bottom are perfect for this as they allow air to flow all around the shapes.