Fresh pasta

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Thursday, April 29. 2021

I learned from one of those Italian cuisine Youtubes that "fresh" pasta, ie still not fully dried and packaged, is a waste of money. The comment was that "You're paying extra prices just for the water weight."

Not a big fan of pasta, really, because it feels like filling, empty calories to me. Sure, rare exceptions like when in Italy. Come to think of it, though, I do eat Thai noodles about monthly in noodle soup or Pad Thai, so there's that.

The point remains, though, that pastas were invented for food storage, carb storage like dried beans. They are made to be dried. Sheesh, years ago Mrs. BD and I made fresh homemade lasagna with a pasta machine. Worth doing it once to see what it's like, but after that a waste of time.

Posted by Bird Dog in Food and Drink at 15:25 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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I try to avoid eating it often, but it's tough to beat De Cecco when I do eat it. Fresh pasta seems a bit mushy to me.

#1 itsatax on 2021-04-29 15:29 (Reply)

My favorite noodles are Shin Ramyun.

Careful though; they're hotter than the hinges on the gates to hell.

My Grandmother raised hot peppers in her garden. She said using hog manure for fertilizer made then hot.

#2 oolioo on 2021-04-29 15:46 (Reply)

My grandfather always said that it took a mean woman to grow a good hot pepper. If you knew the woman he got his hot peppers from, you'd believe that too!

#2.1 Janet on 2021-04-30 06:26 (Reply)

The French say, 'It's not the cost of the fish, it's the cost of the sauce'. The sauce is the equal partner to the fish - no matter how great the fish is when caught, it's only made that way at the table by the skill of the saucier.

Pasta is just the conveyance for the sauce. To me it provides textural counterpoint. Every once in a while, I just have to have some pasta, especially when wifey cooks seafood with a cream-based sauce. Her seafood lasagne is 'to die' for. And I love making stuffed shells once in a while, great big ones with different cheeses and meats, fresh basil, etc, baked 'till the edges are slightly crisp and served piping hot. Lots of work, but they are a huge hit as first course.

#3 Aggie on 2021-04-29 16:44 (Reply)

Well, maybe, but if you have it fresh out of the water, or very, very soon thereafter, it will be the best it can ever be without any sauce of any kind. Up here in Alaska, anyway.

#3.1 John Hyland on 2021-04-29 21:08 (Reply)

One caveat in the wet vs. dry pasta wars:

Japanese noodles (udon or soba, at least, not so much ramen) are much better made fresh or prepared from frozen-when-fresh. The dry ones just don't compare.

For Italian pasta, I prefer dried Sclafani pastas, widely available in Connecticut but not at all in Florida, where I live now. 100% Italian made. But stay away from their vongole, actually imported from Indonesia!

https://www.sclafanifoods.net/shop

#4 The Japanese exception on 2021-04-29 16:59 (Reply)

We have several grades of fresh packaged soba in our local markets here in Japan, so I always buy the best. But for a special occasion we head to our hometown Soba restaurant where the master makes soba in a large glassed booth at the corner of the dining room. A marvel to watch as 100% buckwheat flour is difficult to manage, with prices to match, I might add.

#4.1 Suzanne on 2021-04-30 00:57 (Reply)

Meh. Osteria Delle Coppelle Roma makes a wonderful Cacio e Pepe. No sauce per se, unless you call pepper, pasta water, and aged pecorino a sauce, with only fresh pasta. And then there's the home-made pasta in the beautiful Lasagna Verdi Alla Bolognese we had at Gessetto's in Bologna.

Perhaps we've all had different pasta experiences. I hope you get to try these someday! Ciao, Bull

PS: Agree with the comments on fresh/handmade soba and udon. The dried stuff tastes like the Styrofoam it's wrapped in.

#5 Bull (Link) on 2021-04-29 20:30 (Reply)

My wifes sister's husband is from Italy. When his parents come they always make fresh pasta.

Sorry, there is nothing even close to it dried, or any other form, it is simply amazing.

Maybe try your hand at Polish vodka.

#6 LibDis on 2021-04-30 14:32 (Reply)

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Thursday, April 29. 2021

Fresh pasta