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Pasta-Making And Tomato-Sauce Tasting


mdt

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Amazingly Mdt and mktye pulled this off exactly as envisioned. A huge thanks for all the pre-planning and prep by both of them, (mdt making sample pasta batches and delicious ravioli fillings and mktye re-heating and stirring sauce batches literally for hours and making breadsticks, not to mention all the sauce making and set-up details by both) so many of us could experience pasta making for the first time, taste testing tomatoes, and sampling the results. Here are the first batch of photos. Just wish I had taken a photo of mdt's pb&j ravioli with whipped cream on top! Yum!

Bilrus tries his hand:

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Electric pasta cranking:

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Fun with flour and eggs:

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Shogun gets crankhy:

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Our results rest up:

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Straight from the can taste test:

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Sauce #1 taste test:

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Putting it all together:

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Mktye's breadsticks:

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Non una goccia lasciata! :lol:

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Edited by crackers
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Thanks to our host MDT and mktye for pulling this together and organizing it as well as they did. It was like a well oiled (or buttered) machine.

I had a great time and am pumped about making some delicate ravioli soon. I only wish I could have stuck around to taste my handiwaork yesterday.

Amazed that Hunt's won, but that is what I have in my pantry on a regular basis.

Which brand was the infamaous "Brand H" that almost universally caused people's eyes to bug out and say "Ughh."?

And it looks from the scores like the Hazan butter sauce was the clear winner over Batali's olive oil sauce. I didn't get to try the Batali sauce yesterday but this is usually my go-to sauce. That may be changing after yesterday.

Edited by bilrus
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More thanks...

To mdt for opening his home to us and putting up with all my "help". :lol:

To all the participants for bringing their excellent palates and tasting 24(!) samples. You all were what made the tasting part of the day such a success.

And also for all those great sides that rounded out our eating... Crackers' charcuterie plate, Shogun's cheese plate, Laniloa's delicious grilled zucchini, cjsadler's wonderful caramelized onion/fennel crostini, Cresent Fresh's grating cheeses for the pasta, bilrus' tasty rosemary cake (which was also fantastic toasted for breakfast this morning!) and JG's much-appreciated tomato/mozzarella salad. And in his "spare" time, mdt also made scones, biscotti, chocolate cookies & ricotta cheesecakes -- all yummy and a perfect finish to the day.

More pictures...

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mdt demonstrating the fine points of using a pasta roller

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The tasting begins...

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Raw samples ready to be tasted

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The contenders

Edited by mktye
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I'll add my thanks to mdt for his sponsorship of the first DR.com periodic taste test (it remains to be determined just how periodic these things will be) and to mktye for her painstaking devotion to detail and to both for all their hard work. The only thing the rest of us did was to show up, bring some alcohol and some extra food, and our palates. By my clock, the event lasted about 9 hours, from start to finish. (God, was mdt's kitchen pitted out).

And the infamous brand (joe) H was, the Flora San Marzano DOPs. I consistenly rated it the lowest of the 8. There was much speculation as to why the DOPs uniformly scored so lowly. Freshness was one possiblity, the DOPs have to travel from Italy in a container and perhaps that leads to a degradation of quality. But I, for one, will no longer be going the extra mile or wasting my money on imported tomatos or spending extra for San Marzanos, no matter where they are grown. I'll wait for the Hunt's to go on sale.

Thinking ahead to the next one of these, perhaps fresh mozzerela cheese. The question to be anwered "does the added expense of imported bufala mozzerela translate into added flavor, texture, etc,?"

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Individual scoring and a bit of data analysis (courtesy of Mr. mktye):

Raw Tomatoes Data

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Graphs of individual scores for the Raw Tomatoes

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Butter Sauce Data

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Graphs of individual scores for the Butter Sauce

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Olive Oil Sauce Data

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Graphs of individual scores for the Olive Oil Sauce

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Edited by mktye
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Let me add to the chorus praising mdt and mktye for pulling off such a wonderful event. It was enlightening to all. Throughout the tasting you could hear people making a variety of interesting sounds as they contemplated the far greater range of difference then we all expected. While we all thought the raw tasting would showcase the difference we expected the sauce making process would cover a wider range of sins. It didn't. Thanks for the graphs mktye, they really highlight that some of the samples were bad to everyone (objectively bad) and others had a wide range of opinion (subjective). It reminds me of the discussion on the can you be too serious about food thread.

All in all a great day of tasting tomato, wine, pasta, and good conversation while very patient teachers helped us make fabulous pasta even with our best efforts to trash mdt's kitchen.

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I just finished cranking out the rest of the dough that I brought home last night. mdt and mktye rock. thank you. The last time I had that much fun at a white powder party was about 1985. :lol:

I particularly would like to thank the person who really made it all possible -- mdt's grandma.

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Thinking ahead to the next one of these, perhaps fresh mozzerela cheese.  The question to be anwered "does the added expense of imported bufala mozzerela translate into added flavor, texture, etc,?"

Sounds like a great idea! Count me in.

And how about after that, a taste test only for the strong of heart (literally), the daring, those with more nuts than a ventworm...

Yes, a day of tasting... bacon!

Would the bacon coming from deep-bedded, pampered piggies win out? And what about bacon smoked with wood only from organically farmed apple orchards? Or would the tastiest be the pumped full 'o chemicals, artificial-smoke-flavored bacon from hormone-injected pigs? ;):lol:

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Sounds like a great idea!  Count me in.

And how about after that, a taste test only for the strong of heart (literally), the daring, those with more nuts than a ventworm...

Yes, a day of tasting...  bacon!

Would the bacon coming from deep-bedded, pampered piggies win out?  And what about bacon smoked with wood only from organically farmed apple orchards?  Or would the tastiest be the pumped full 'o chemicals, artificial-smoke-flavored bacon from hormone-injected pigs?  ;)   :lol:

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

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I will pass along the praise to Mr. mktye -- it was his idea. He also proposed we should taste the bacon by itself, in BLT's and then in bacon cheeseburgers. And then eat all the leftover test bacon with garlic mashed potatoes and lots of sour cream! :lol:;)

But I don't know about waiting until JG's construction is finished... that could be a few years! :P

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I will pass along the praise to Mr. mktye -- it was his idea.  He also proposed we should taste the bacon by itself, in BLT's and then in bacon cheeseburgers.  And then eat all the leftover test bacon with garlic mashed potatoes and lots of sour cream!

We can work out the where and when details later. In the meantime, what do I need to bring???!!!!
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. . . .bacon by itself, in BLT's and then in bacon cheeseburgers. And then eat all the leftover test bacon with garlic mashed potatoes and lots of sour cream! . . .

We can work out the where and when details later.  In the meantime, what do I need to bring???!!!!

For starters, a home defibrillator might come in handy :lol: Edited by crackers
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I posted the results of my left over pasta dough here on the dinner thread.

I made papardelle by rolling the sheets of dough last night and cutting them sprinkled with corn meal. I put them in the water still rolled and most came unrolled, but not all. I'm thinking for the wider cuts I should unroll them first before going in teh water. But on the whole, much more delicate than I've made in the past.

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I posted the results of my left over pasta dough here on the dinner thread.

I made papardelle by rolling the sheets of dough last night and cutting them sprinkled with corn meal.  I put them in the water still rolled and most came unrolled, but not all.  I'm thinking for the wider cuts I should unroll them first before going in teh water.  But on the whole, much more delicate than I've made in the past.

Let the sheet dry more before rolling and cutting and they will unravel when you put them in the boiling water. Keep a dish towel over the sheets so that they do not dry too quickly.

Other than that you pasta was looking good. If you want silkier pasta try the Italian Style flour from King Arthur.

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Just wanted to add my belated (Still no internet access, but FWIW I'm basically done moving!) thanks to MDT and Mktye for the awesome day! I had a really great time...we need to do things like this more often! I'm definitely going to need a pasta machine for the new place!

You guys rule! :lol: Viva DR.com!

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A word of warning:

When rolling pasta (especially when one is in a hurry) with a pasta machine with a removable handle, it is prudent to ensure the handle is fully seated in the body of the machine before madly cranking on it. Not doing so can result in the handle flying out of the machine, out of one's hand and into one's face :lol: , which can subsequently result in a nasty bruise, a semi-black eye and abundant muffled wimpering (so as to not awaken napping house guests). :P

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Well it is the morning after and the flour has all been clean up, well mostly, and my kitchen is back to normal. All in all a fun day with good food, friend, and wine. I am looking forward to the pictures. tongue.gif The day started off with a couple of shuttle run to the metro to have me return to a full house of DR.com'ers popping corks, setting up their side dishes, and getting things underway.

We then started with a quick lesson on how to make pasta dough. After showing how to roll out, cut, and shape everyone make a batch or two of dough. While letting them rest we started with the first tasting, raw tomatoes. To keep this brief the rest of the day was spent alternating between rolling out pasta and tasting tomato sauces. We finished up with a good deal of eating and discussion about the days event.

Thanks to everyone that attended, I enjoyed it and look forward to some posts in the dinner thread with pictures of pasta dishes in the future.

A word of thanks to jparrott for donating some wine for us to taste.

A specail thanks to mktye for helping me to organize and pull of the day. I truly would not have been able to pull this off with our your help.

The tastings were done blind with scoring from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) for each sauce. We had 10 people attending and scoring, expect for the last sauce where we had 9.

Now here are the interesting results. I am sure that others will comment with details.

Raw Tomatoes

37 Hunts

34 Ferrara

31 Redpack and Sun of Italy

29 Muir Glen and Cento DOP

26 Furmano's

23 Flora DOP

Butter Sauce

34 Furmano's

32 Muir Glen and Redpack

29.5 Hunt's

28 Cento DOP

27 Sun of Italy and Flora DOP

26.5 Ferrara

Olive Oil Sauce

31.5 Hunt's

30 Redpack

27 Ferrara and Sun of Italy

24 Muir Glen

23 Furmano's

19 Cento DOP

16 Flora DOP

Total Scores

98 Hunt's

93 Redpack

87.5 Ferrara

85 Sun of Italy and Muir Glen

83 Furmano's

76 Cento DOP

66 Flora DOP

I know it's been 8 years since this Tomato sauce tasting, but I read it with great interest a while back. I usually buy San Marzano DOP when I cook southern Italian. I decided to try the winner (Hunts) instead of something else from Italy. When I was cooking, I noticed that the sodium content was way higher on the Hunts than whatever else I'm used to using. I also notice quite a bit of variation in sodium content between types of canned tomatoes. I was wondering if anyone remembers if this was controlled for in the tasting. It appears that it was not. I haven't gone back to using Hunts after my first try because I like to salt my own food. This was a few months ago so I don't remember the numbers, but I just looked it up on the Hunt's website and it says 190mg per 1/2 cup. I compared it to Cento San Marzano DOP which I think was the other one I had at the time. This website says 20mg of sodium per 1/2 cup. That means Hunts has almost 10x more sodium than Cento (and probably most others). Since people like salt (myself included) I think this might skew any taste comparison between brands. I was a bit surprised that nobody noticed this, though It's been a while since I read the whole thread, so maybe it's in there.

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I was wondering if anyone remembers if this was controlled for in the tasting. It appears that it was not. I haven't gone back to using Hunts after my first try because I like to salt my own food. This was a few months ago so I don't remember the numbers, but I just looked it up on the Hunt's website and it says 190mg per 1/2 cup. I compared it to Cento San Marzano DOP which I think was the other one I had at the time. This website says 20mg of sodium per 1/2 cup. That means Hunts has almost 10x more sodium than Cento (and probably most others). Since people like salt (myself included) I think this might skew any taste comparison between brands. I was a bit surprised that nobody noticed this, though It's been a while since I read the whole thread, so maybe it's in there.

I agree that varying amounts of salt among taste-tested products would probably skew the results, and would have thought that the more salt, the higher the rank. Canned tomatoes with no added salt taste pretty awful until you add some salt. But I just looked up a couple of the other products that didn't rate as high as Hunts, and Redpack has 220mg of salt per 1/2 cup. Muir Glen has 260mg.

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I agree that varying amounts of salt among taste-tested products would probably skew the results, and would have thought that the more salt, the higher the rank. Canned tomatoes with no added salt taste pretty awful until you add some salt. But I just looked up a couple of the other products that didn't rate as high as Hunts, and Redpack has 220mg of salt per 1/2 cup. Muir Glen has 260mg.

Interesting. It seems the American brands have more sodium in general. Though I don't cook southern Italian as much as I used to, I always preferred Italian brands (even if they weren't San Marzano). They always seemed to have tomatoes that were fully ripe (and easy to crush by hand). American brands always seemed to be canned before they were fully ripe. Of course it's been awhile since I cooked with canned tomatoes on the regular.

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Interesting. It seems the American brands have more sodium in general. Though I don't cook southern Italian as much as I used to, I always preferred Italian brands (even if they weren't San Marzano). They always seemed to have tomatoes that were fully ripe (and easy to crush by hand). American brands always seemed to be canned before they were fully ripe. Of course it's been awhile since I cooked with canned tomatoes on the regular.

I generally use Italian brand Bionaturae organic strained tomatoes ("passata") for sauce. It comes in a glass bottle and contains 15mg sodium per 1/2 cup (no added salt). I totally agree about salting my own food. Once you add some salt to the Bionaturae passata, it has a deep, satisfying tomato flavor, at least to me.

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Interesting. It seems the American brands have more sodium in general. Though I don't cook southern Italian as much as I used to, I always preferred Italian brands (even if they weren't San Marzano). They always seemed to have tomatoes that were fully ripe (and easy to crush by hand). American brands always seemed to be canned before they were fully ripe. Of course it's been awhile since I cooked with canned tomatoes on the regular.

Part of it is that American tomatoes use calcium chloride (I think that's the correct chemical-- saw it on ATK quite awhile ago) in their canning process and Italian brands do not. This keeps the cell walls from collapsing and thus chunkier in later uses.

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