00 flour / Pasta

[nannyl]

i hope someone can help me

I am planning on making pasta and every recipie says i need 00 flour (ie very refined wheat flour)

I have looked everywhere and just cant seem to find it

I assume it is not bread flour (I have loads of that!) and also not just normal plain flour? (which i also have lots of)

I looked thouroughly in a big asda yesturday and couldnt find any and also looked in a big sainsburys last week (in the flour section?) and couldnt see any there.

i dont have Waitrose anymore now im in yorkshire (nearest store an hours drive ) and i dont have a big tesco nearby either

im really hoping someone can point me in the direction of where i might be able to buy some. Is it in the flour section? and also what does the packet look like?

Im a nigella fan and notice she uses it alot in her recipies yet i dont understand how i have never found it and have always just used plain flour!

Could i make pasta with normal plain flour?

any help apreciated

TIA

I use bread flour, it turns out fine (well, it all gets eaten )

I use plain: it turns out great. You can get 00 flour in health food shops.

00 flour is finely milled and high-gluten.
Bread flour is less finely milled but is high-gluten. Therefore I would use bread flour. But from what other people say it sounds like it doesn't matter that much!

You will occasionally find it in big supermarkets as 'sauce flour' (because the fine grains cook into the sauce more easily). Dove's Farm do it and you will get it in health food shops.

If you are ever in the centre of York, Henshelwoods Deli near the market do it, and also semolina flour which is useful for dusting pasta machines (if you get very perfectionist about all this!).

its poncery

btw Nigella claims to also use 00 in pastry - she is talking crap - I tried this and it shrinks horribly because of all the gluten.

Pasta can be made with plain flour, but will be heavier and more "springy" than if made with "00" flour as it not as finely gound and the type of gluten is different.

"00" flour can be purchased on Ocado,any large grocery stores (do you have a Sainsbury near you"?), Carluccios, Italian grocery stores, or specialty internet companies )just google and loads will pop up).

Sorry, just read about you not finding it is Sainsbury.

thanks for all your help

so it seems i can just use normal plain (might go and buy some McDougles super fine plain flour as opposed to sainsburys own, or bread flour)

is there a preference between bread or plain?

I see people on here have done both!

Sains online do this one.

My tip is to knead knead knead. An italian recipe book I use says it should be as smooth as a baby's bum when it is ready to roll .

According to Nigella she uses 00 flour for making cut out biscuits for children to mangle ice.

This has to be poncery gone mad, doesn't it? I can understand it for something like a sauce or for pasta-making but you can get too hung up on these things.

To be fair to Nigella, she said that she doesn't have a wide variety of flours around so she uses 00 flour for many things which call for plain flour.

I use an Allisons 00 one from sainsburys. have never found it anywhere else. Have never tried using anything else

Allisons is available on Ocado also.

Nigella is rich. She can afford a kitchen big enough to keep three kinds of flour in.

lol

mum in law found some doves pasta flour in her cupboard so will be using that

at least i will now know what packet to look out for... i have doves farm organic PASTA flour in a green bag