A characteristic common to all pasta is the initial preparation of dough that can be extruded or drawn to obtain the desired shapes. The components of the dough are normally semolina (flour) and water, or semolina (flour), water and eggs. The only components that are always present, because they are indispensable, are semolina (flour) and water. All the other ingredients added, from eggs to squid ink, are just optional ingredients that can be of greater or lesser importance and/or add character.
Water is not an ingredient in dry pasta given that it is used to shape the dough and then removed during the drying process.
It has a purely technological function.
In this type of pasta, the only ingredient is semolina. Instead, the water used in fresh pasta not only has a technological function, but gives a specific organoleptic characteristic to the finished product. The water from fresh eggs or from pasteurized egg mixes is certainly different from the water taken directly from the tap. Semolina and water not only make up pasta, but also make the difference between one pasta and another.
Semolina and flour are obtained by milling wheat. Everyone knows that the grains cultivated or cultivatable on our planet are vast and varied. The same can be said for semolina and flour.
Everyone also knows that the principal classification for grains distinguishes between the "soft" ones and the "durum" ones. And finally everyone knows that by milling soft grains you obtain flour and by milling hard grains you obtain semolina. Flour, by classic standards, are good for making leavened products (bread, biscuits, baked desserts, etc.). On the other hand, semolina, are destined to the pasta factories.
Naturally, this thesis is true, but not absolute. Semolina can be used to make bread, or flour can be used to make pasta.
Wheat and how it is milled is the starting point to distinguish the flour and the semolina that are "good" for bread from the ones that are "good" for pasta. |
