Cooking
It's no secret that I'm crazy about pasta. I could eat it everyday. Something about the texture of noodles is so appealing to me. I like glutinous chewy noodles, egg noodles, tiny little types like orzo, soup noodles, crispy noodles. I like them all, with the exception of mushy canned pasta like Spaghetti-O's, which incidentally I loved as a child.
While I always have dried pasta on hand, and I buy fresh stuffed pasta from time to time from an Italian deli, sadly I don't eat fresh noodles at home very often. I used to make pasta from scratch, but it was a fair amount of work and messy. I am creeped out by the pasta that comes in those little refrigerated packages from the supermarket. It doesn't really taste all that great and the plastic containers are pumped full of gases to keep the pasta "fresh". Yuck!
Recently I discovered a terrific dried "fresh" pasta made by a pasta freak like myself, Monique Deschaine (who learned how to make it from Marcella Hazan). Just like the pasta I made from scratch, it cooks up in just three minutes. It has that wonderful delicate yet toothsome texture so it's no wonder her company is called "Al Dente". Most importantly it actually tastes fresh.
Deschaine uses only durham flour, semolina and eggs, nothing funky. Her pasta comes in wonderful flavors too like the black squid ink variety I used recently to make a scrumptious seafood dish. It's also a bargain, you can find it in stores for around $5 a package or purchase it online for only $3. In addition you can buy gift packages of pasta that seem custom made for someone like me!
FOOD + PASTA
- Sea Urchin Spaghetti Recipe
Sea urchin or uni is rich and creamy. It tastes very briny and yet sweet. Emulsified with some extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice, it makes a wonderful sauce for pasta. The type of pasta you use is up to you of course, but isn't it gorgeous on...
- Red Wine Pasta With Walnuts: Recipe For World Pasta Day
Pasta is my comfort food. It makes me happy to eat it, to cook it and even to look at it. I love all kinds of noodles from Italian to Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and even Spanish noodles. I love the texture and the way noodles are chameleon-like, absorbing...
-
In addition to being defined as "ribbon-like pasta", noodle also means brain and to improvise. So go ahead, use your noodle, noodle around and then post about it. Come join in the second anniversary of the first online food blogging event, created by...
- Ecco La Pasta!
Dried pasta is the perfect convenience food, after all it only takes a pot of boiling water to cook it. But fresh pasta is another story. It takes work. Having a food processor and a pasta rolling machine make it a little easier but it's far from...
- Cheesy Pasta
And I keep working through Nigel Slater's Real Food... This time, Pasta with Four Cheeses. Now, we've tried countless baked, multi-cheese pasta dishes in the past. And I usually have the same problems with them: cheeses don't blend, too heavy,...
Cooking
Al Dente Pasta: Favorite Things
It's no secret that I'm crazy about pasta. I could eat it everyday. Something about the texture of noodles is so appealing to me. I like glutinous chewy noodles, egg noodles, tiny little types like orzo, soup noodles, crispy noodles. I like them all, with the exception of mushy canned pasta like Spaghetti-O's, which incidentally I loved as a child.
While I always have dried pasta on hand, and I buy fresh stuffed pasta from time to time from an Italian deli, sadly I don't eat fresh noodles at home very often. I used to make pasta from scratch, but it was a fair amount of work and messy. I am creeped out by the pasta that comes in those little refrigerated packages from the supermarket. It doesn't really taste all that great and the plastic containers are pumped full of gases to keep the pasta "fresh". Yuck!
Recently I discovered a terrific dried "fresh" pasta made by a pasta freak like myself, Monique Deschaine (who learned how to make it from Marcella Hazan). Just like the pasta I made from scratch, it cooks up in just three minutes. It has that wonderful delicate yet toothsome texture so it's no wonder her company is called "Al Dente". Most importantly it actually tastes fresh.
Deschaine uses only durham flour, semolina and eggs, nothing funky. Her pasta comes in wonderful flavors too like the black squid ink variety I used recently to make a scrumptious seafood dish. It's also a bargain, you can find it in stores for around $5 a package or purchase it online for only $3. In addition you can buy gift packages of pasta that seem custom made for someone like me!
FOOD + PASTA
- Sea Urchin Spaghetti Recipe
Sea urchin or uni is rich and creamy. It tastes very briny and yet sweet. Emulsified with some extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice, it makes a wonderful sauce for pasta. The type of pasta you use is up to you of course, but isn't it gorgeous on...
- Red Wine Pasta With Walnuts: Recipe For World Pasta Day
Pasta is my comfort food. It makes me happy to eat it, to cook it and even to look at it. I love all kinds of noodles from Italian to Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and even Spanish noodles. I love the texture and the way noodles are chameleon-like, absorbing...
-
In addition to being defined as "ribbon-like pasta", noodle also means brain and to improvise. So go ahead, use your noodle, noodle around and then post about it. Come join in the second anniversary of the first online food blogging event, created by...
- Ecco La Pasta!
Dried pasta is the perfect convenience food, after all it only takes a pot of boiling water to cook it. But fresh pasta is another story. It takes work. Having a food processor and a pasta rolling machine make it a little easier but it's far from...
- Cheesy Pasta
And I keep working through Nigel Slater's Real Food... This time, Pasta with Four Cheeses. Now, we've tried countless baked, multi-cheese pasta dishes in the past. And I usually have the same problems with them: cheeses don't blend, too heavy,...