I use my KitchenAid stand mixer constantly; whether I’m mixing cake batter, kneading bread, making fresh pappardelle or just whipping cream, it sits there on the counter calling out “Put me in the game, coach! I’m ready!”, and I almost always heed the call. So when KitchenAid offered to send me out one of their pasta extruder attachment to review, I was happy to accept. I’ve been wanting a way to make extruded pasta at home for years, and I suspected this would be the perfect option.
I’ve already made a couple of batches of pasta with the extruder. The first was a saffron rigatoni using a semolina dough, and the second you see above – bucatini flavored with a lot of turmeric. That’s one of the great advantages of making your own pasta: you have the opportunity to flavor the noodles with anything that intrigues you. (I’m thinking of smoked tomato powder next.)
The attachment is well made and thoughtfully designed. It couldn’t be easier to attach to the mixer, you just open the accessory cover, slide it into place and tighten down one screw. And when you are done, it comes apart for easy cleaning. It helps to let stuck-on dough simply dry over night, then you can brush it right off.
To use the attachment, you first use the mixer itself to make the dough. After choosing an extruder plate (spaghetti, bucatini, fusili, rigatoni, and large or small macaroni), you feed the dough into the top and watch as your pasta comes out the bottom. You swing the attached wire cutter across as the noodles reach your desired length. It really helps to feed the dough in very small chunks – about walnut size as the manual says. That makes the auger work a lot more efficiently.
The noodles come out quite dry to the touch; they have very little tendency to stick together, and they have a nice textured surface that helps sauce adhere.
Now I don’t want to kid you – this is not a restaurant-strength pasta extruder. It takes probably 10 or 15 minutes to make enough for four servings, and you have to stay with it to operate the cutter. It does make fresh extruded pasta available to the home cook at a really reasonable price though, and I know I’m looking forward to lots more great meals from it.
For the recipe below, you can find garlic chives (nira) at a well-stocked Asian grocery. It would also be good with scallions cut in lengthwise strips. A quick saute in butter highlights the flavor of the chives.
Turmeric Bucatini with Garlic Chives (Nira)
Serves 4
Vegetarian
- 1 batch basic egg pasta dough from the KitchenAid pasta extruder manual; add 1 Tablespoon of turmeric powder to the flour
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 bunch (about 5 ounces) garlic chives (nira), hard ends trimmed
- Kosher salt
- Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Bring a large pot of well-salted to a boil. Warm serving bowls. Extrude turmeric pasta with the bucatini die using manual instructions.
- Melt the butter in your largest skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic chives and a big pinch fo salt and saute for 1 minute, until tender. Turn off heat.
- Boil the pasta until al-dente, about 4 minutes. Drain and add to the garlic chives. Turn heat under the skillet to high. Toss well, until the pasta is nicely buttered. Taste and add salt if needed. Divide the pasta among the serving plates, using tongs to twirl together the noodles and chives. Finish with grated parmesan cheese and black pepper and serve immediate.
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Looks lovely. I’ve been looking at this attachment for some time, wanted to see what people say about it. Thanks for the review, it’s quite helpful to hear about the product from such a popular blogger as yourself. Now, all is left is to convince my husband that I Need it, or put on a wish list for the upcoming holidays…
I JUST found out that there is a pasta extruder available for my KitchenAid and I am so excited! I tried making pasta with a friend and it was very rubbery. Did you find the texture of the pasta you made to be similar to store-bought? To me it’s all about the texture!
No, this wasn’t rubbery at all; the semolina noodles had a nice elastic snap, and the egg noodles were more tender, as would be expected. The texture isn’t primarily a function of the extruder, it has more to do with the ingredients – the gluten content of the flour and the amount of liquid used primarily, along with your kneading technique.
You must read the user comments on Amazon.com before buying this extruder. Peoples overall experience is quite negative due to breakage and sticking, clumping pasta.
I’d tend to disagree with that characterization; it has 4.1 out 5 stars with 61 5-star reviews out of 101; that’s pretty solid. I do see some people have had the ring crack, though I do find that surprising – it is plastic but quite thick and heavy duty. I think one way people would tend to go wrong is that the dough you want is indeed surprisingly dry bordering on crumbly; the flour hydrates as it compresses in the auger so it works when it seems too dry at first. Also, as I mentioned, you really do want to feed the dough in small balls, about 1-2 tablespoons at a time – it will still come out as continuous pasta.
i have been debating about getting this attachment for my mixer. I think this settles it.
I have had my sister’s pasta attachment for the past year and haven’t made anything yet. That bucatini looks AMAZING! And you got my mouth watering with the mention of smoked tomato power… Guess I didn’t realize you could flavor your noodles like that! I am very inspired… I have bookmarked this recipe because it seems like a perfect cold weather afternoon get together WITH my sister so we can play together
Thanks!
Ring crack TWICE.
Plastic is not made to take significant variations in recipes, thus one is stuck with what I consider an inferior sticky pasta.
I have used this for two years, only occasionally, as I am not too satisfied with it. The old hand roller pasta machine is better in many ways.
As an engineer, I am not surprised by the ring break. It is where the greatest force is and most polymers are not capable of handling that type of stress.