My Bottene Model B torchio pasta press arrived with two
bronze dies to make bigoli (here) and
gargarti (here), Venetian variations
of spaghettoni and sedani, respectively. Although the torchio originated in the Veneto, the
press accommodates a myriad of bronze dies allowing you to extrude classic pasta
shapes from across Italy, such as gramigna
(here) from Emilia-Romagna or tonnarelli (here) from Lazio.
Search the WWW (or explore
this site) and you will find plenty of recipes to make dough suitable for a
hand-cranked torchio. You will not,
however, find much information on the Internet on how to clean the torchio’s pasta dies. Pasta shops and
restaurants that keep pasta machine dies in regular production often store their
dies in plain water or water spiked with vinegar (approximately 15 ml per liter
of water). Whether you use plain or acidic water, every pastaio I queried recommends changing the soaking water every day.
Although soaking dies
makes sense when one keeps a die in constant use, this practice does not work
for me and probably not many other home cooks. Here’s my die cleaning routine (which
I do not represent as the standard of
care). First, after extruding pasta with my torchio,
I remove the die and pick out as much of the dough left in the die that I can
using a toothpick or other similar small wooden skewer. I can entirely clean
certain simple dies, such as my bigoli
and gargarti dies, by using a
toothpick.
Survey a range of pasta dies
and you will notice that many dies have inserts (i.e., bronze plugs that seat
into holes bored into the die blank). These inserts, some with open backs while
other partially enclosed, do the work of manipulating the dough into the
pasta’s shape using surfaces, ridges and/or pins. Certain dies, depending upon
their insert’s configuration, take a lot
of work to clean. Again, I usually start with a toothpick or small wooden
skewer to remove as much dough as possible. I then soak the die in lukewarm soapy
water for a couple of hours or overnight. I might again try to pick out more
dough by hand and soak the die again. I next use a Waterpik that I purchased to
clean dies. I find cleaning dies with a Waterpik yields good results, but also makes
quite a damp mess. Spray goes everywhere.
Some dies are so difficult
to clean that they need multiple soaks and take a couple of passes with the
Waterpik to dislodge all the small pieces of dough that become trapped in their
inserts. Nevertheless, the soak and Waterpik method remains the best way that I
have found to clean certain complex dies (e.g., lumache, perciatelli and 23mm rigatoni).
Personally, I find
cleaning bronze pasta dies A Total Bore. I’ll admit it: I may not buy a die if
the die looks like it will be too difficult to clean. Call me lazy, but if a
die involves too much work to clean, I am simply less likely to use it. I’m
looking at you, perciatelli.
