You know, I'm right there with you on the sacrilege part, but nowadays I microwave pasta all the time. You need to use a non-starchy pasta for this to work. I use plain store-bought Barilla Plus because I love it anyway. For fresh pasta, you could try a small experiment; I've never tried with freshly-made pasta.
It takes less time than boiling on the stove for me because I do this:
- Fill up the electric kettle with water and turn it on.
- I use a 1/2 gallon Pyrex measuring cup as my "pot", and I put an inch or so of water in that and pop it in the microwave for four minutes to warm it up.
- When the water's boiling in the kettle and the oven timer expires, I take out the Pyrex container, add the pasta and a little oil and some salt (optionally a little vinegar), and then pour in the boiling water to cover by an inch or so.
- Dumpling-like pasta (rotini or penne) take about 8:30 to cook on high (I've got I think an 1100 watt oven; experiment); spaghetti 5:30, thin spaghetti 4:30.
I know it sounds like a horrible sin, but I started doing it when I needed to cook small portions of pasta for my kids. I tried it myself, and realized that I could tell absolutely no difference from the results I got in my big pasta pot. When I need to boil a lot of pasta (like 2 14oz boxes) I still use the big pot of course, but a pound or less actually cooks up perfectly fine. My pasta cooker is enormous and takes a long time to come up to the boil.
Now once I tried this (not thinking clearly, obviously) with some very starchy, fancy pasta, and it did not work at all. But maybe because it's got so much extra protein, Barilla Plus comes out absolutely fine. (It's good for you too.)
edit — Here's an update: I still do this, but recently one of the seemingly endless succession of microwave ovens I've had recently died, and I'm pretty sure it's because it somewhat frequently overheated while doing this very thing (cooking pasta). Now I don't blame the technique, really, since an oven should probably be designed with the possibility of hot stuff being inside of them for some periods of time, but be warned. (It overheated probably 10 times or so over the course of a couple years before dying, so it was right about at what I find to be typical end-of-life anyway.)
The best part of making your own food is the ability to experiment! Sure, you can get spinach or tomato pastas in the store, but is there something else you've always wanted to try? Try some chili peppers for a Mexican flair, or ginger and leek for Asian foods. I've heard that even certain fruits work well, and chocolate could form the base for a unique dessert.
Best Answer
Yes. I will show you. Here are my experiment results.
I have this as my mill. It takes a long time to go from wheat to flour and I mean like hours maybe even days.
I tried a 2 3/4 cup flour: 6 eggs: 5 tsp oil ratio and kneaded both batches for a good 10 minutes and rested 1 overnight and 1 for 30 minutes.
I obviously got more than what is shown but I can't show a full 20 ounces with each strand separate.
those black lines are supposed to be the pasta, the dark orange representing that it is whole wheat pasta. The brighter orange is the cheddar cheese sauce. I made this by taking some sharp and some mild cheddar that I have made myself and melting it on low bit by bit so that instead of a crust I would get a smooth sauce. It turned out good and after about 5-6 minutes, maybe less, maybe more, it was al dente and it didn't turn out to eggy or flourly or oily. I think I have found the right ratio for my whole wheat pasta.