Adding tomato paste to extruded pasta dough adds a lovely tomato flavor. You can used regular tomato paste or sundried tomato paste.
The most important aspect of getting this dough right is the hydration percentage. This will vary based on your flour and machine. I use a Kitchenaid pasta extruder with Antimo Caputo Semola or Mulino Marino flour. (Neither are sponsors, it is just my preference). I find a 40% hydration works best with these two. Note that if the dough is too dry it could damage the pasta die or machine. If the dough is too wet, the shapes will be deformed and too soft. When extruding you know the dough is perfect when you can cut it off with a plastic bench scraper.
Extruded Tomato Pasta Dough
Description
Freshly extruded semolina and tomato pasta dough at home.
Ingredients
Instructions
-
Make the dough
Mix the tomato paste in warm water. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment add the flour. Turn the machine on low and slowly drizzle in the water and tomato mixture. Continue mixing on low for 5 minutes to allow the water to fully absorb.
-
Check consistency
The dough should resemble wet sand. When folded into a ball it should hold its shape but loosen back into a sand consistency when crumbled. If the dough is too dry add a splash of water, if too wet add a touch more flour.
-
Extrude the dough
This step will depend on your machine. For a Kitchenaid, they recommend forming the dough into balls and feeding through the hopper. The first few inches will be deformed. This can be fed back into the hopper. As the machine heats up it will start to extrude a smoother dough.
Cut the dough into desired length.
-
Dry the pasta
Let try for at least 15 minutes.
Fresh pasta will cook in around 2 minutes if fresh. If fully dried it will take a bit longer and depend how dry the pasta is.
Note
For pasta inspiration check out our recipes here!