Ok, bear with my excitement over this product review: from all the products I have had to review, this one is my favourite. I have looked at those little machines that you put the dough into and crank out the type of pasta you want, and the add-on attachments for mixers to cut the pasta to shape. The problem is that you make the dough, then let it rest for an hour or so, then process the dough through the machine to roll it out to the thickness you want and – by the time you do a couple batches – you realize you should have gone to buy the pasta in the store. My mom had one of those crank machines and it was just way too much work to get something simple, like spaghetti noodles, done.
Well the Philips Viva Pasta Maker changed that all. The machine produces fresh pasta noodles in less than 20 minutes! No waiting, no cranking, and very little effort. The Philips Viva Pasta Maker is compact and easily sits on top of your counter. It is 350mm (length) by 135mm (width) x 287mm (height) (13.5"L by 5.5"W by 11"H). There is a dough mixing chamber on top with a kneading rod that goes through the center of it. On the front side of the mixing chamber is where the discs go that the pasta dough gets shaped through.
The box comes with three different discs that do spaghetti, penne and fettuccini. Additional discs can be ordered in sets of two that do angel hair pasta and pappardelle, or thick spaghetti and tagliatelle, or the stand-alone sheet pasta disc which great is for lasagna, ravioli and dumplings. A cool feature is that the pasta maker can also be used for cookie dough, and there are two discs with cookie cutters and recipes to make them. I already know that when I get a chance, I will be ordering all the discs.
There is a compartment under the dough mixing chamber that holds two discs, where I wish it would hold more, but at least it can hold some of your most used discs. There is also a cleaning tool, which doubles as pasta cutter, so you can cut the pasta to the length you want as it comes out of the machine. It also comes with a recipe book, which includes recipes for both plain pasta as well as complete dishes.
On the first try, I wanted to keep it simple. You don’t realize how simple pasta is to make until you make it at home. Now it is recommended that you use a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients. If you don’t have the ingredients right, the dough will be too soft and not hold its shape, or too dry and fall apart. Your base noodle recipe is just 200 grams of all-purpose flour and 70 grams of water. That is all it takes to make 200 grams of basic pasta, which is enough for two or three people, depending on how much pasta each person has. To do egg noodles it’s still 200 grams of all-purpose flour, but 80 grams of liquid, the egg plus water. The recipes can be doubled, which is the maximum amount of dough the machine can handle.
I selected the penne disc for my first go. The disc is placed on the front of the machine and you screw on the holder that keeps it in place. I measured the ingredients, The flour goes into the chamber and I closed the lid. I turned the machine on, and the kneading rod began to mix the flour around. Through the lid of the chamber I poured the water in slowly.
During the kneading process, the dough looks lumpy and nothing comes out of the machine. After three minutes, the kneading rod changes direction and starts to push the dough through the front of the machine. The pasta curls a bit while it’s pushed out, but I think that makes the pasta look more interesting and unique, unlike store-bought. As it comes out, you cut the pasta to how long you want it to be. The disc is designed to give the penne a rough texture, which I found was awesome for just about any pasta sauce you serve with it. A lot of the store-bought pasta has a very smooth shell and, when you make your pasta sauce, the sauce has nothing to stick to, leaving it mostly on the plate. With this nice texture, the sauces have something to stick to.
As the pasta comes out and I cut it to length, I lightly sprinkle some additional flour on it to keep it from sticking. Once it’s close to being done pushing the dough through, it will reverse direction and then go back to pushing the remaining dough through. It will beep once it is done. You can then put it into manual mode, during which you can use a spatula to scrape off any remaining dough and let it finish up. If you open the lid while it is kneading the dough or making pasta, the kneading rod will stop.
Once the pasta is out, you can immediately put it into boiling water. Thin pasta only takes about four to five minutes to cook; thick pasta would take about six to eight minutes. You can also let it dry, put it in the fridge if you are going to use it a couple days later, or even freeze it.
When you take the machine apart, there will be some dough left over. I usually just put it back into the machine to finish it off or make some small bites of pasta like what it made. The machine parts are dishwasher safe, and any dough left on the disc can be easily removed by the scraping tool.
The quality of pasta the machine makes is even better than some of the fresh pasta I have had at some restaurants that have spent a ton of money on large machines. The recipes are simple. You can swap out the all-purpose flour with a mix of semolina and all-purpose flour, or a mix of buckwheat flour with all-purpose flour to make soba noodles, or just whole wheat only, or spelt flour, or bread flour for ramen noodles. You cannot use rice flour in the machine. When you select the flour, the more protein in it, the better the quality the pasta will be, or you can offset the flour’s protein by adding egg. I bought durum semolina flour, which expands the type of pasta I can make.
There are also recipes that swap out the base liquid. You can make carrot pasta, beet pasta, squid ink pasta, tomato pasta or spinach pasta. There are recipes for herb pasta, fennel and pepper pasta, as well as curried noodles. The possibilities are endless. I was searching online for additional recipes and there are a lot more including desert pastas, like chocolate pasta, which you can serve with a raspberry sauce, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I could see trying pasta with cinnamon in it served with apple pie filling or freshly sliced apples sprinkled with brown sugar. Seeing how simple the recipes are, you know exactly what is going into your pasta so there are no artificial flavours, colour or fillers.
Though the discs are set to size Italian pasta, all the pasta recipes can be used for any dish. There are no different recipes for Japanese or Chinese noodles unless they are the pulled noodles, done by hand. For thick udon or shanghai noodles, you can use the thick spaghetti disc or the penne disc. I have even done the noodles without having them hollow by removing the insert of the penne disc.
I find that I use the penne and fettuccini discs the most. I will double the recipe for standard wheat pasta with no egg, and store the pasta in the fridge so I have it ready for several meals. I have it one night with something Italian, like ground beef and tomato sauce. The next night I do a Chinese stir-fry served with the same noodles, and the night after that a coconut curry dish. The egg noodles are great for soups too. I have not used any store-bought pasta since I received the Philips Viva Pasta Maker. The cost of doing pasta from scratch is pennies and if you want to eat healthy, you can just make it whole wheat, which will taste better than the store brands.
There are a couple other Philips pasta makers available. This one is the entry level, which is great for one person or small families. For larger families, or people that really enjoy their pasta, there is the Avance Collection Pasta Maker or the Premium Collection Pasta Maker. All three machines use the same recipes and discs, but the latter operate a little bit faster than the one I reviewed. They also have a LED display, a larger body and the Premium Collection Pasta Maker comes with a built-in scale and more disc storage.
The Philips Viva Pasta Maker goes for about $200; the Avance Collection Pasta Maker for $230; and the Premium Collection Pasta Maker for about $280. The double disc set of thick spaghetti and tagliatelle kit run about $20; a double disc set of angel hair and pappardelle kit about $30; and the single disc for doing sheet pasta about $55. The double disc set for making cookies is roughly $30.
There has been one issue having the pasta maker. Unless I need to be out doing a restaurant review, covering an event, or out of town, I have noticed I eat at home more. The pasta maker has provided so many options of what to make for dinner that I don’t want to eat out. I want to see what else I can have for dinner that is restaurant quality at home. You don’t need to be a professional cook to use it. A beginner can easily use it too. You have an endless combination of noodle dishes at your reach. This is great for families and parents who want kids to help cook. Do a couple different batches swapping between carrot, spinach, beet and the tomato pasta recipes and the kids will see it like Play-Doh that you can cook and eat.
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Contributor Steve Polyak |
Topic Food | Philips | Product Review |
