Pasta from Italiano

There are two basic kinds of commercial pasta:

• Pasta all'uovo, egg pasta such as tagliatelle, fettuccine, and whatnot (these are the same tagliatelle one makes at home, but made with semolina), and:

• Pasta di semola di grano duro, made with semolina, water and a touch of salt.

The former are flat and of varying width, while the latter comes in all sorts of shapes, from spaghetti to penne to cart wheels.

Which kind should you use?

Egg pasta goes well with hearty fare, for example meat-based sauces or rich pomarola. Tagliatelle are also commonly flavored with other ingredients, for example spinach, which turns them green, tomato, which turns them red, or squid ink, which turns them black. Lasagne made with egg pasta are also superb.

Because of the variety of shapes it comes in, pasta di semola di grano duro is more versatile; which shape to use depends upon the sauce and personal taste. Spaghetti, spaghettini, bucatini and other strands go well with fairly liquid sauces. Shorter hollow pastas, for example penne or tortiglioni, go well with thick sauces, in part because they trap the sauce. They also work well in baked dishes, because they have considerable body and can withstand being heated through a second time. Other shorter flat pastas, for example farfalle (butterflies or bow ties), work nicely with cream sauces because the sauce tends to stick to their surfaces.

In terms of purchasing commercial pasta, there are many brands to choose from; in Italy the most popular are Buitoni, De Cecco, Barilla, Agnesi, and Voiello (not necessarily in this order).

There is also pasta artigianale, pasta made in smaller factories by artisans whose chief concern is quality. Though the basic ingredients are the same, that's where the resemblance ends: The artisans extrude their pasta through bronze dies that leave microstriations to capture and hold the sauce, and also dry it at lower temperatures, thus preserving the flavors of the wheat. According to Nancy Harmon Jenkins, four of these producers export to the United States: Rustichella D'Abruzzo, Latini, Benedetto Cavalieri and Martelli.

Should you not find Italian pasta in your market: Read the labels of what's available, and pick pasta made with durum wheat flour or semolina. Avoid dried pasta made with simple bread or soft wheat flour (much of the Northern European pasta, for example) because it won't hold up to cooking.

Source: www.italianfood.about.com

See also: tamani, marzano

Pasta for Us for Then

Pasta alla carbonara (usually spaghetti, but also fettuccine, rigatoni or bucatini) is an Italian pasta dish based on eggs, pecorino romano, guanciale, and black pepper. The dish was created in the middle of the 20th century.

The recipes vary, though all agree that cheese (pecorino, Parmesan, or a combination), egg yolks (or whole eggs), cured fatty pork, and black pepper are basic. The pork is fried in fat (olive oil or lard); a mixture of eggs, cheese, and butter or olive oil is combined with the hot pasta, cooking the eggs; the pork is then added to the pasta. Guanciale is the most traditional meat, but pancetta is also used. In the US, it is often made with American bacon.

Cream is not common in Italian recipes, but is used in the United States, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia and Russia (especially in Moscow). Other Anglo/Franco variations on carbonara may include peas, broccoli or other vegetables added for colour. Yet another American version includes mushrooms. Many of these preparations have more sauce than the Italian versions.

In all versions of the recipe, the eggs are added to the sauce raw, and cook (coagulate) with the heat of the pasta itself.

Origin and history

Like most recipes, the origins of the dish are obscure, and there are many legends about it. As the name is derived from the Italian word for charcoal, some believe that the dish was first made as a hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers. This theory gave rise to the term "coal miner's spaghetti", which is used to refer to spaghetti alla carbonara in parts of the United States. Others say that it was originally made over charcoal grills, or that it was made with squid ink, giving it the color of carbon. Another rumour about the origin of the name suggests that the way abundant black pepper was added to the dish (before or after serving) especially during winter, made the black pepper flakes among the whiteish sauce look like charcoal, or perhaps the effect one gets when a casserole dish is accidentally "burnt". It has even been suggested that it was created by, or as a tribute to, the Carbonari ("charcoalmen"), a secret society prominent in the unification of Italy.

The dish is not present in Ada Boni's 1927 classic La Cucina Romana, and is unrecorded before the Second World War. It was first recorded after the war as a Roman dish, when many Italians were eating eggs and bacon supplied by troops from the United States, and the name may be from a Rome restaurant called 'Carbonara'. More recently, a restaurant in Rimini has claimed the original recipe was born during WWII.

The recipe was included in Elizabeth David's 1954 cookbook published in Great Britain. The dish became popular among American troops stationed in Italy; upon their return home, they popularized spaghetti alla carbonara in North America.

Source: www.wikipedia.com

See also: steak, marzano