(gadget snaps)

and that didn't sound good, slowly,

(gadget snaps) hey, nope.

Hey everyone, I'm Joe, today I am testing out pasta gadgets.

We have several different pasta gadgets we found

from all over the Internet.

I'll be checking out these gadgets

based on these three criteria, if they make

the process easier, how well they work,

and are they a good value for the price.

I love pasta, let's get started.

We have a stainless steel pressure pasta surface machine.

It did come with free delivery.

This big old heavy-duty, countertop pasta extruder,

the Raviolamp pasta stamps, pasta stamp, pasta stamp.

This little guy here I am incredibly excited about,

little singing floating pasta timer, Mr. Al Dente,

restaurant cheese grater here, for grating cheese

for the pasta, there's pictures of pasta on it.

And last but not least we have a new

and improved Auoon Strainer.

We have all of our gadgets here, now all we need

is the pasta dough, and we can get to work.

(upbeat music)

All right, we've unboxed our pasta extruder here,

put this together,

gonna turn it on,

(machine beeps)

we're on.

Kind of makes me a little nervous, dealing with all

this plastic, normally I know metal is better.

Oh, we gotta add flour, so we're going to start there.

I have a mix of eggs and water.

Start,

(machine beeps)

mix, now this is where I slowly add my liquid,

kinda do 50, 50 here, that is what the recommended

dosage is on the box.

I think the timer in here says it only takes two minutes.

The extruder here, what it does is uses pressure

to force the dough through these different dies

in different shapes in order to make pasta.

It says it can make up to a pound and a half,

you know about a pound is good for two to four people.

In theory, dried box pasta is usually better

than anything you can make at home.

It turned off.

Oh, it looks like we're extruding.

The dough inside actually looks pretty good.

I don't know if it's okay, at this rate,

we'll have spaghetti by tomorrow.

It's like little baby spaghettis, coming out

into the world for the very first time.

It actually has texture on it, which is a good thing.

I'm gonna take a little bit of semolina flour here,

and give it a little dust, then we're gonna use this,

and that actually looks pretty promising.

I'm very impressed by this entire machine.

The question is, is it better than just buying

dried box of pasta.

You gotta have this whole machine, you have to wash it,

a box of spaghetti's only about a dollar.

The dough itself seems a little delicate and fragile,

I'm not sure if it's gonna hold up when we go to boil it.

Very curious to see how these are gonna cook up.

(jazzy music)

Now we're on to the handheld, old-fashioned version

of extruding pasta.

This is called a torchio, it's made by twisting the top

and you're forcing the dough through the bottom,

much like the extruder we were just using, but handheld.

The price of the real one is four or $500,

probably about twice as big.

Like this, and hangs over the edge of the table.

So that way you're like extruding, and you have

these big turning things.

Screw the bottom on,

so we're gonna twist here,

(gadget snaps)

and that didn't sound good.

We just squirted off the bottom, I heard a loud snap,

let's unwind, take two.

(camera beeps)

Slowly, slowly,

(gadget snaps) nope,

maybe I was doing it backwards,

(gadget snaps)

and we got another pop, it's falling apart.

The dough is creating too much pressure

inside of the die, looks like this guy's a bust.

I don't think that's gonna work.

(quick music)

We're going to test out the pasta we had extruded

with our countertop extruder, let's see if holds

when we cook it.

And we're goin' ahead and drop this into our water,

give it a little stir, break up the nests.

I have some tomato sauce, we're just gonna get started.

We're gonna pull one out, give it a little taste test.

Just about al dente there, we're gonna go up here

into our tomato, pull all of our noodles

out of the hot tub.

For the most part, they held together.

It's not falling apart, we got a nice good noodle

pulled there, time to try these out.

(piano music)

Now I have another pasta gadget here, my cheese grater.

Gonna break off a piece, slide it inside, that goes there,

and oh, my, gee, look at that.

Cheese grater worked great, did what it should,

kept it nice and easy.

You twirl it, and swirl it, and enjoy it.

I'm very happy with this.

We're gonna come back, test out our strainer,

test out our timer with some dry pasta from a box.

(honkytonk music)

All right, we have Al Dente, this guy's supposed

to sing to me at different intervals, it has four

different melodies, depending on the four different

cook points of Al Dente, you want to hit.

"That's Amore", the "Godfather theme",

"Tarantella Napolitana", and "The Prisoner's Choir."

He goes into the water pot with the dried pasta.

So this is not a regular timer, I don't know how

this works, some sort of witchcraft and wizardry,

this is kind of one of those magical moments.

I'll go with two handfuls of pasta, we're gonna go

Mr. Al Dente, into the water, and see what happens.

That's Amore, That's Amore, I think that's

how the song goes.

He's dancing, now we're just waiting for him to sing.

All of my years of culinary and cooking experience,

I am completely forgetting about and simply relying

only on Al Dente.

Al Dente, first name Al, last name Dente.

Think we're all,

("That's Amore")

"That's Amore", we're gonna pull out one noodle,

okay, very undercooked, but maybe that's

for fresh pasta, the timer.

First round done, he's supposed to sing again.

We're hangin' out, in the kitchen,

("Godfather theme")

I'd say we're a little more than halfway,

on the cook, that next timer might actually be perfect.

I don't understand why they don't make cellphones

out of this, where you could just drop it

into a pot of boiling water.

("Tarantella Napoletana")

If you're not a pasta pro, I mean,

I think this could actually be useful.

At the very least, it just reminds you to check

the water, and you're testing the pasta.

That's al dente, Mr. Dente, you nailed it.

(jazzy music)

Next pasta tool here, this is like a silicone strainer

of sorts that clamps onto the pot,

that goes there,

and then we're gonna try this pouring motion.

We got a little bit of leakage, in the back,

but it's catching all the pasta.

Wow, that actually worked pretty well.

Kinda goes against, you know, what I would normally do,

'cause I like the pasta water, I feel like you need that,

with the sauce.

This is small, compact, and I mean it does the job.

Sounds like his innards are still working.

Thank you, Al Dente, I could not have done it

(timer ringing) without you.

(stealthy music)

We have this box set of ravioli molds.

I have my pasta sheets, I have a cheese filling,

little bit of spinach pureed in here, in my bag.

We'll pipe filling into each of these,

I always like a little spritz of water,

then we have our other sheet we're going to place on top.

And then we should be able to roll right down,

oop, we got a little excess, that's okay.

In theory, with force, this should cut our shapes, too.

You can see it kind of working, then if we pop it out,

we have our shapes.

They didn't cut all the way in the center,

but, we have this other tool here, which actually might

work out to our advantage.

Pretty easy, pretty painless, they got a good weight

to them, the filling held up, they're sealed.

And we have all of our little raviolis.

We'll go and try the traditional way

that I have always done it.

(circus music)

They feel really light, and flimsy.

So I have a sheet of pasta,

I have my filling, always like to get a little gauge,

we have our top sheet, to lay over.

We have our stamp.

(stamp bangs)

See, to me, I feel like this is the way to do it.

Maybe have a little bit of waste but you could always

roll this out, re-use it, get another sheet out of it.

At the end of the day, you could cook all of these up,

have a delicious pasta in minutes.

Probably won't stand up to work in a restaurant,

but, for casual pasta-making, pretty good bargain.

(soft jazzy music)

All right, we've tested out

all these pasta gadgets that we found.

Time to break down my final thoughts.

Tabletop counter version of extruding pasta,

I like the way this worked.

It takes up quite a bit of space, it's not very fast,

but if you're looking for an extruder,

how much does this cost?

- [Man] Hundred fifty.

- $150, to me that's a little pricey.

I'm gonna give it a three out of five,

just because it did a good job.

Handheld extruder, this did not hold up,

could not review it, essentially, how much did that cost.

(cash register clunks)

$20, lot of times you get what you pay for,

I believe in this case, that is true.

I'm gonna give that a zero, because it didn't work.

Next we had our cheese grater for pasta garnishes

and grating cheese accoutrements, this worked wonderfully.

Like when you're at you're favorite super-classy

Italian restaurant and they come over, and they ask you

to say when, when you're getting your cheese on top

and then you kinda feel like that person

that never wants to say when, and the pile just keeps

getting bigger and you're oh, wait, is that just me?

This worked really well, how much does it cost?

(cash register clunks)

$17, I think that's a little too much for a tool

like this, it doesn't really hold a big piece of cheese.

2 1/2, 2 1/2 just 'cause I don't see the value,

for $17 in a cheese grater like that.

Al Dente, the singing pasta timer.

I was blown away by this, it's next level dark arts,

but how much did this cost?

(cash register clunks)

$20 for Al Dente, I don't think the value's there

for the money, you could definitely get a kitchen timer.

Definitely not worth $20, but perhaps it's like

one of those holiday gag gifts, or like a birthday

present for someone you only kinda like.

I'm gonna give this a three out of five.