# How setting should you roll fresh pasta to with a Marcato Atlas 150? Is dried pasta better?



## tiemu (Jul 24, 2014)

As perhaps the world's most popular pasta maker, I've surprisingly only found ONE instruction from Marcato by way of Youtube which is to roll fettuccine to number 6. But how about for other pasta types, eg. lasagne, papardelle etc.?

Even following the instructions to 6, I find my pasta resembles noodles in texture and taste more than 'pasta'. I find dried semolina pasta like Barilla always smoother, with nicer bite, and better taste than fresh pasta. Is fresh pasta simply overrated?

Although the numbers go from 0-8, I find rolling to 8 gives me terrible results (it's said silk handkerchief pasta should be as thin as a piece of paper, but mine has an unpallatable texture and taste when I do that).


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

What's your recipe?


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## grande (May 14, 2014)

I can't offer you any insight on rolling thicknesses, but I can vouch for handmade pasta; I've had some very good stuff. Also, there's commercially available fresh pasta which is quite good. So, I would say, research, experiment, and fail a little bit to figure out what works. If you're having taste & texture problems, my thought is the dough is at fault, not the roller.
Unfortunately, fresh pasta isn't something I'm that good st myself. But after years of cooking I always say, "Try again, fail, fail again better."
PS: Not clear on your distinction between "pasta" and "noodles"?


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## teamfat (Nov 5, 2007)

I tend to agree that the issue may be more dough related. I plan to make a batch tomorrow. Maybe I'll cook up a bit with no drying and then some that has dried, see if I can detect a difference in texture and taste.

mjb.


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## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

The OP may be noticing a difference between fresh pasta with egg and dried pasta that doesn't use egg.


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

Commercially made pasta doesn't hold a candle to the real thing.

As for the settings on your machine, forget the instructions and go with what looks and tastes good.

I make pasta weekly. I have the ATLAS brand. 

For linguine I set the machine at 5 because I like the mouth feel of the finished product.

For Fettuccine I set the machine on 6-7 for the same reason.

Spaghetti gets # 6 all the time.


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## tiemu (Jul 24, 2014)

My recipe is 100 g plain flour + 1 egg.

By noodles, I mean something more resembling Asian food than boxed semolina pasta. For Asian noodles, I do the exact same dough of 100 g flour with 1 egg, rinse the cooked product under cold water to wash all the starch off and it tastes like Asian egg noodles (though less chewy; you need lye or other alkaline to get that wonderful ramen texture).


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## grande (May 14, 2014)

What's your method?


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