Great Gifts: Al Dente Noodle Maker

I thought that this would be an appropriate gift to highlight this week since I just posted about making noodles. 4 years ago I received my noodle maker from my parents, I and have been enjoying since.

The noodle maker that I have is the Villaware Al Dente Pasta Machine. It is made out of chrome plated stainless steel and clamps onto a table or counter. It has 3 separate rollers, each 6 inches wide. The first roller used is to roll your dough to the desired thickness - there are 7 settings to choose from. After you have your dough rolled out to the desired thickness, you use one of the two remaining rollers to make spaghetti or fettuccine.

This pasta maker cleans up quickly with a dry cloth after you are done. It comes with a nice instruction booklet that also contains some recipes. I think the hardest part of using this pasta maker is really just with making the dough. The humidity of the day and the eggs you use effect the moistness of the dough, which is a very important part of making great noodles - so you have to learn how to get it just the right consistency.

You can read more about the Villaware Al Dente Pasta Machine here, although you can find it cheaper than that site if you shop around. I also just found out tonight that there are optional attachments that allow you to make angel hair, trenette, spaghetti, lasagnette, lasagna and ravioli. Hmmm. . . I think some of those might make my great gifts list of things I would like!